Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

NEW WRIT.

For the Borough of Rhondda (East Division), in the room of Lieut.-Colonel David Watts-Morgan, C.B.E., D.S.O., deceased. —[Mr. Edwards.]

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Sheffield) Bill,

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Torquay) Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN VISITORS (PASSPORT VISAS).

Mr. MANDER: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the names of the countries whose citizens are able to enter Great Britain without a passport visa?

The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Mr. Baldwin): Visas to enter Great Britain are not required by nationals of the following countries:

Austria.
Norway.


Belgium.
Portugal.


Czechoslovakia.
Saar Basin.


Denmark.
San Marino.


France.
Spain.


Germany.
Sweden.


Italy.
Switzerland and Lichtenstein.


Luxemburg.



Netherlands.
Vatican State.

Mr. MANDER: Does my right hon. Friend not think it desirable to add the United States to that list?

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS (POLISH CORRIDOR).

Mr. MANDER: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will consider the advisability of proposing to the Council of the League of Nations, in view of the existing tension with regard to the Polish Corridor, that a neutral commission, on the lines of the Lytton Commission, should be set up to study this problem and make recommendations for its solution?

Mr. BALDWIN: No, Sir.

Mr. MANDER: In view of the exceedingly critical state of affairs in that area, do not the Government think it desirable to take some action?

Mr. BALDWIN: The only action that I have before me is the action suggested by the hon. Member, and I do not think that is very helpful.

Mr. MANDER: Is it not possible for the Government to think of something more useful?

Mr. BALDWIN: We will try.

Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: Is it not the case, as reported in this morning's Press, that this difficulty is well on the way to solution?

Mr. BALDWIN: Even if it has been so reported, I think that is the case.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA: BRITISH SUBJECTS (ARRESTS).

Mr. POTTER: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now make a statement regarding the recent arrest and detention of four British subjects by the Moscow secret police?

Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLE: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now give further information concerning the raid on the offices of the Metropolitan-Vickers Company, Limited, in Moscow, and of the arrest of prominent officials of that company?

Mr. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir. The information which I have received from His Majesty's Ambassador at Moscow confirms the Press reports to the effect that the following British subjects,
Messrs. Monkhouse, Thornton, Cushny, MacDonald, Gregory and Nordwall, employed by the Metropolitan Vickers Company, together with more than 20 Soviet citizens employed by the same firm, have been arrested by the Soviet political police on a charge of sabotage of electrical machinery. Messrs. Monkhouse and Nordwall have since been provisionally released on an undertaking not to leave Moscow. The other persons arrested are still in custody and His Majesty's Ambassador has visited them in prison. Their health appears to be generally satisfactory and permission to exercise has been promised.
Immediately on receipt of news of the arrests His Majesty's Ambassador at Moscow made urgent representations to the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, requiring to know, among other points, exactly on what charge the arrests had been made, and what facilities for their defence would be granted them. As he has received no categorical or satisfactory answer on these matters, he has been instructed to press for the fullest possible information from the Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Monsieur Litvinoff.
Moreover, as His Majesty's Government are convinced that there can be no justification for the charge on which the arrests were made, Sir Esmond Ovey has been instructed to represent in strong terms the grave view which they take of these proceedings against British subjects of high standing engaged in normal commercial pursuits to the benefit of both countries, and the unfortunate consequences to Anglo-Soviet relations which may follow unless it is rectified; and similar language will be held to the Soviet Ambassador in London to-morrow, as His Excellency has been unable to come to the Foreign Office to-day.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: May I ask my right hon. Friend, first, whether he has any information with regard to the raids on the company's offices that took place at Leningrad; and, secondly, whether the Government will not at once press for the release of the other British subjects who are in custody, and press for full satisfaction with reference to this outrage?

Mr. BALDWIN: With regard to the first question, if my hon. Friend will put any question on the Paper, I will give
him all the information as it comes to hand. The information is rather slow in coming through. With regard to the second question, I would only add that we do regard it as a very grave matter, and we shall take all steps possible.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: Do the Government not now realise the futility of the policy that they have hitherto adopted, of allowing British subjects—

HON. MEMBERS: Order, order!

Mr. THORNE: You remember how you "pinched" Tom Mann.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

BUSINESS TAX, HANKOW.

Mr. NUNN: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the attempt to levy business taxes from foreigners in Hankow; and whether he will secure from the Chinese Government a confirmation of the undertaking that British subjects shall be liable only to pay such regular and legal Chinese taxation not involving discrimination as is in fact imposed on and paid by Chinese citizens throughout China?

Mr. BALDWIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, my hon. Friend, I think, somewhat misapprehends the position. It is not a question of an undertaking by the Chinese Government, but of a voluntary offer made by His Majestys' Government to extend the liabilities of British subjects in the manner described in the question. The Chinese Government have been reminded of the terms of that offer in connection with the business tax at Hankow.

JAPANESE COMPETITION (WEST AFRICA).

Mr. HAMMERSLEY: 22.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is able to recommend any action to be taken by Colonial Governments to deal with Japanese competition in the West African Colonies?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister): As my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has recently stated in reply to several questions, the whole
problem of Japanese competition is at present under His Majesty's Government's consideration.

Mr. HAMMERSLEY: May we take it from that answer, that my right hon. Friend is considering the possibility of certain Colonies withdrawing from the Anglo-Japanese trade agreement without prejudice to this country's position as it affects the treaty between Japan and this country?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: As soon as my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is in a position to do so, I am sure he will make a full statement to the House.

ARGENTINE.

Captain FULLER: 41.
asked the President of the Board of Trade how much of our adverse balance of trade for 1932 with the Argentine was due to interest payments on our investments in that country and for shipping and banking services?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): The estimated net income from overseas investments and from shipping and banking services is not calculated for individual countries.

BALANCE OF TRADE.

Captain FULLER: 42.
asked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent our increased adverse balance of trade in 1931–32 was due to the importation of machinery and plant for the erection of new works in this country; to what extent our adverse balance of payments during this period has led to foreign investment in this country; and if the shrinkage of our income from over seas investment is in any way due to the drop which has occurred in foreign imports?

Dr. BURGIN: Omitting capital items, the excess of debits over credits in the balance of payments of this country was substantially less in 1932 than in 1931. I regret that no precise information is available on the points raised in the question.

DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE (ARMS MANUFACTURE).

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many nations have yet replied to the questionnaire on the private manufacture of arms issued by Mr. Arthur Henderson, president of the Disarmament Conference; which were the nations concerned; and what was the nature of their replies?

Mr. BALDWIN: According to the most recent information received from Geneva 35 nations have replied to this questionnaire. With the hon. Member's permission I will circulate the list in the OFFICIAL REPORT. It would be impossible for me to give a résumé of all these replies within the compass of an answer to a question in this House.

Mr. WILLIAMS: In any case where countries have replied have they given the exact number and percentage of their people who produce arms exclusively?

Mr. BALDWIN: I require notice of that question.


Following is the list:



Panama.
United States of America.


Bulgaria.



Estonia.
New Zealand.


Latvia.
Rumania.


Albania.
Japan.


Portugal.
France.


Afghanistan.
Irish Free State.


Turkey.
Belgium.


Siam.
China.


Poland.
Sweden.


South Africa.
Yugoslavia.


Greece.
Finland.


Iraq.
Netherlands


Norway.
(Mother country),


United Kingdom.
Venezuela.


Lithuania.
Italy.


Egypt.
Hungary.


Denmark,
Germany.



Persia.

Mr. WILLIAMS: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government has yet replied to the questionnaire on the private manufacture of arms issued by Mr. Arthur Henderson, president of the Disarmament Conference; and, if so, whether the reply can be published?

Mr. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir. The reply of His Majesty's Government was sent
to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations on the 30th December last. The reply has been circulated with others to all delegations of States represented at the Disarmament Conference and will doubtless be published by the League of Nations in due course. In the circumstances His Majesty's Government do not consider that they would be justified in incurring the expense entailed in publishing the reply in this country, but I am ready, if the hon. Member so desires, to have a copy of the reply placed in the Library of the House.

Mr. WILLIAMS: I would thank the right hon. Gentleman for the latter part of that reply.

CHINA AND JAPAN (MUNITIONS).

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the efforts of His Majesty's Government have been directed to securing an agreement between the principal arms-exporting Powers to place an embargo only upon arms exported to the State declared by the League of Nations to be the aggressor in the conflict in the Far East or whether their policy was to try and secure an embargo on arms exported to both combatants?

Mr. BALDWIN: The efforts of His Majesty's Government have not been specifically directed to either one object or the other but to securing consideration of the matter with a view to the formulation of a policy acceptable to the world at large.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Does the right hon. Gentleman not feel that the suggestion in the question might be much more successful, in view of the decision recently taken by the Government?

Mr. BALDWIN: If the hon. Member had had to act in this matter I think he would realise the extreme difficulty of getting any agreement, whatever the case presented, in view of the position of other countries.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

HERRING DRIFTERS (AUXILIARIES).

Sir MURDOCH MacKENZIE WOOD: 9.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many herring drifters were engaged in the service of the Royal
Navy during the War; whether it is still the view of the Admiralty that these drifters would be required as auxiliaries to the Fleet in the event of a war; and, if so, whether he has taken any steps to assure himself that a sufficient number of these vessels in a sea-worthy condition are likely to be available in an emergency?

The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Sir Bolton Eyres Mon-sell): About 1,150 drifters were taken up on Charter during the late War, but all of them were not in service at the same time. A number of drifters will probably be required in the event of a future war. The Admiralty are fully alive to the importance of the fishing industry to the Royal Navy.

Sir M. WOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that practically all the drifters at present in commission were built before the War, and in most cases are out of date?

CADETS, DARTMOUTH.

Vice-Admiral CAMPBELL: 10.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what is the cost to the State of an officer entered as a cadet at Dartmouth College till the age of 20; and what is the cost to the State of an officer entered as a special-entry cadet till the age of 20?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: I presume that the inquiry relates to executive officers. The approximate net cost to the State of an officer entered as a cadet at Dartmouth is £l,200, and that of an officer entered as a special-entry cadet is £900, until promotion to the rank of midshipman. These figures include the additional cost to keep the "Frobisher" in commission as a cadet training ship instead of as a reserve fleet ship. After an officer becomes a midshipman he takes his place in the ship and his pay, etc., is not charged against the cost of his training.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: How many years does that sum of money cover?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: Six years.

Mr. ANEURIN BEVAN: 19.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will give the various scales of fees charged to the parents or guardians of cadets at Dartmouth College, and the
numbers now being educated there under these various scales?

The CIVIL LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Captain Euan Wallace): The fees charged to parents or guardians for cadets at Dartmouth College during the current term are as follow:

268 at £150 per annum.
30 at £100 per annum.
39 at £70 per annum.
40 at £40 per annum.
In addition, there are 12 King's cadets for whom no fee is charged.

Mr. JONES: Are these exactly the same persons as are referred to in Question No. 10?

Captain WALLACE: I expect so.

Mr. BEVAN: Is not the means test applied to them?

HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP "PRESIDENT."

Vice-Admiral CAMPBELL: 11.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many officers of the Royal Navy and Marines, respectively, were employed at the Admiralty and borne on the books of His Majesty's ship "President" on the following dates, 1st January, 1914, and 1st January, 1933; and what were the numbers of the personnel of the Royal Navy on these dates?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: The number of Naval and Marine Officers employed at the Admiralty, etc. on the 1st January, 1914, was 121. The personnel of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines on the same date numbered 144,554. The corresponding figures for the 1st January, 1933, were 212 and 90,037. The increase in the number of Naval and Marine Officers at the Admiralty, etc. is of course mainly due to the formation of a Naval Staff, which did not exist before the War.

INVALIDED RATINGS.

Sir BERTRAM FALLE: 12.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of naval ratings invalided during the year 1st January, 1932, to 31st December, 1932; the total number invalided with tuberculosis during this period; and the number invalided with tuberculosis whose disability was accepted as attributable to service?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: The number of naval ratings and Royal Marines
invalided during the year 1932 was 979. The number invalided during that period with Pulmonary Tuberculosis was 190 and in 148 of these cases pensions were granted on the attributable scale.

MATERIALS AND CLOTHING (LANDING),

Sir B. FALLE: 13.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether petty officers and men of the Royal Navy who purchase raw materials or new articles of clothing from the clothing stores in His Majesty's ships and establishments are permitted to land such materials or articles; and, if so, whether he will authorise the issue of passes the same as now supplied for the landing of provisions?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: The King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions already prescribe that clothing for men's personal use may be landed if accompanied by a pass, as for provisions.

BEER BARS.

Sir B. FALLE: 14.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the introduction and extension of the general messing system, he will reconsider the whole question of beer bars in chief and petty officers' messes in shore establishments and permit the messes to run the bars themselves for their own mess funds like sergeants' messes in Royal Marine barracks?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: The present management of these bars by Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes is, so far as the Admiralty are aware, quite satisfactory, and as my hon. Friend knows the present proposal has been rejected in the past on more than one occasion after full consideration. I am willing, however, to call for reports from the Commanders-in-Chief at the home ports on the working of the present system and on the desirability or otherwise of the change suggested.

ROYAL MARINES.

Lieut.-Commander AGNEW: 15.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the numbers of officers and men of the Royal Marines serving in sea-going ships of the Royal Navy, and the numbers serving in shore establishments and barracks?

Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: 4,512 and 4,830.

PROMOTION.

Mr. COCKS: 16.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of Dart-
mouth and special entry cadets to be entered in the executive and engineering branches during 1933 and the number of commissions available for lower-deck ratings in these branches under the new scheme of promotion from the lower deck?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Lord Stanley): It
has been announced that 13 executive and six engineering cadetships will be offered at the special entry examination in June. It has also been announced that the total number of special entry executive cadetships in the present year will not be less than 25. The total number of engineering appointments is not yet known. It is too early to state the number of cadets who will be entered through Dartmouth and the number of commissions which will be given to lower-deck ratings in the present year.

Mr. COCKS: 17.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty why the number of commissions awarded to the seaman branch was reduced from 12 in 1931 to eight in 1932, seeing that 13 candidates were recommended by the fleet selection boards; and why only four of the 20 engine-room ratings, recommended for sub-lieutenant (E), were commissioned?

Lord STANLEY: Of the 13 candidates for executive commissions who were recommended by fleet selection boards, only eight were qualified for promotion. The engineering candidates who were recommended by the fleet selection boards had subsequently to take a qualifying examination and to come before an Admiralty Selection Board who further considered their suitability and selected four, having in view Fleet requirements.

Mr. COCKS: 18.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of commissions awarded under the mate and mate (E) schemes each year between 1913 and 1932, inclusive; the number of cadets entered in the executive and engineering branches under the special entry scheme each year since its introduction; and the numbers of each class promoted to the rank or equivalent rank of commander and the years?

Lord STANLEY: As the reply contains a tabular statement, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

The numbers of annual promotions to the rank of acting mate and acting mate (E) are as follow:


Year.
Acting Mate.
Acting Mate (E).


1913
44
—


1914
31
14


1915
108
28


1916
51
42


1917
92
52


1918
43
17


1919
Nil
10


1920
11
6


1921
3
7


1922
6
6


1923
6
5


1924
6
5


1925
5
5


1926
9
5


1927
7
5


1928
8
5


1929
5
4


1930
6
4


1931
12
4


1932
8
4

Up to and including the year 1923, special entry naval cadets were not earmarked for executive or engineering duties. The figures given below for the years 1913 to 1923, inclusive, show the total number of special entry naval cadets entered for either of these duties. The figures for the years 1924 onwards show the numbers entered for executive duties and for engineering duties separately.

For Executive and Engineering duties.


1913
42


1914
62


1915
63


1916
83


1917
134


1918
158


1919
46


1920
15


1921
16


1922
15


1923
15

Executive duties.
Engineering duties.


1924
15
6


1925
28
34


1926
28
47


1927
30
41


1928
18
19


1929
14
22


1930
11
23


1931
12
22


1932
16
16


1933 (up to date)
10
5

The following promotions from ex mates and ex mates (E) to commander and engineer commander, respectively, have been made:



Commander.
Engineer Commander.


Up to 1925 inclusive.
Nil
Nil


1926
1
—


1927
—
3


1928
1
6


1929
2
7


1930
2
8


1931
2
8


1932
2
8

The following promotions to commander and commander (E), respectively, have been made from ex-special entry cadets:



Commander
Commander. (E).


Up to 1928 inclusive.
Nil
Nil


1929
—
3


1930
—
4


1931
4
3


1932
8
6

Mr. A. BEVAN: 20.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will give the total numbers of seamen and engine-room ratings throughout the Navy who took the higher educational test for commissioned rank, in October last, under the new regulations whereby all five papers have to be taken at one examination; and the numbers who passed?

Captain WALLACE: Twenty-one seaman ratings and 22 engine-room ratings took the examinations referred to. Five passed in each class.

Mr. BEVAN: 21.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, considering the disappointing results, one first-class certificate in gunnery and one in torpedo
and none at Greenwich College, obtained by the 12 sub-lieutenants (ex-able seamen) who took the mates' courses for lieutenant during 1932, any action is to-be taken on similar lines to the preliminary training of midshipmen to enable future officers promoted from the lower deck to achieve the same standards as sub-lieutenants (ex-cadets)?

Captain WALLACE: The officers referred to were promoted under the old "mate" scheme. All future promotions will be made under the new scheme outlined in the statement by the First Lord on 20th May, 1931. That scheme provides for the officers selected from the lower deck to undergo a preliminary course at Greenwich which is designed to enable them to compete on equal terms with the officers from the cadet entries, with whom they will undergo the usual sub-lieutenants' courses at Greenwich and Portsmouth.

STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.

Mr. CAMPBELL: 23.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the Governor of the Straits Settlements has recently taken action to restrict the ancient Chinese custom of cracker firing during their New Year festival; and, as this action and the wording of the official notice on the subject is causing widespread resentment, will he direct the withdrawal of the restrictions forthwith?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I have seen the Governor's notification in the Press, but I have no official information in regard to it. I will ask the Governor for a report on the circumstances in which it was issued.

Mr. CAMPBELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Governor what possible use there can be in upsetting our friends the Chinese in the Straits Settlements by trying to restrict one of their most ancient customs and superstitions?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I should think that the use of fireworks in reasonable quantities could certainly not give rise to serious objection either among the Chinese or in this country, but it may be, in this case, that the volume, velocity and frequency were considerations.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

HINAIDI AERODROME, BAGDAD.

Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: 24.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he can make any statement as regards the abandoning of Hinaidi aerodrome, Bagdad, and the proposed construction of another base 50 miles away; and if he will state the amount spent to date on the construction and maintenance of Hinaidi aerodrome and the amount to be received in compensation from the Iraq Government?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): As the answer is long I will, with my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

As regards the first part of the question, the Anglo-Iraq Treaty of 1930 (Command Paper 3627) provides for the withdrawal of the British Forces from Hinaidi and Mosul within five years of the admission of Iraq to membership of the League of Nations. The forces will be transferred to a new base which, in accordance with the terms of the Treaty, will be to the west of the Euphrates in the neighbourhood of Lake Habbaniya on land which is being placed at the disposal of His Majesty's Government by the Iraq Government.

As regards the second part of the question, I regret that I am not in a position to state the total amount spent on the construction and maintenance of the cantonment at Hinaidi. The cantonment was originally constructed by the Army for the large garrison of British and Indian troops and since it was taken over by the Air Ministry 11 years ago, has been adapted to the constantly diminishing requirements of the Royal Air Force.

The Iraq Government have agreed to take over the permanent buildings and plant at Hinaidi together with the permanent buildings and plant at Mosul at one-third of the cost price as certified by the Air Ministry, an arrangement which is embodied in the agreement on financial questions published as Command Paper No. 3675. I may add that the original cost of the permanent buildings and plant at Hinaidi has been assessed at approximately £1,000,000.

ACCOUNTS.

Mr. DINGLE FOOT: 25.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he has considered the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on Appendix V of the Air Services Appropriation Account, 1931, stating that in 1928 the Ministry approved the provision at Mount Batten, Plymouth, of a lighter for the bulk storage of petrol for flying boats and marine craft; that the lighter was purchased and adapted at a total cost of over £8,000; that in 1929 the Ministry further approved the provision of. storage tanks ashore for both aviation and motor transport spirit; that under this scheme one tank was provided at an expenditure of £408; that the lighter has not been used since its delivery at Mount Batten; that the flying-boat station has instead been drawing its supplies from a local oil company; and whether he will say for what reasons the two overlapping schemes were approved and state the precise cost of the lighter and its subsequent history?

Sir P. SASSOON: As the hon. Member is doubtless aware, it is the time-honoured practice of the House to entrust to the Public Accounts Committee the examination in the first instance of the various Appropriation Accounts. My Noble Friend takes the view, therefore, that it would not be in accord with constitutional custom to answer in detail the several points raised in this question in advance of consideration by the Public Accounts Committee. He feels it, however, necessary to point out that the preliminary account of the matter at issue, contained in the Air Services Appropriation Account for 1931, is both incomplete and, in his judgment, definitely misleading in certain material respects.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

AUTOMATIC TRAFFIC SIGNALS.

Mr. HANLEY: 27.
asked the Minister of Transport if he will arrange to have arrows fixed to the standards of automatic traffic signals in all places where filtration to the left is permitted?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Oliver Stanley): It is customary to use green arrows on light signals where filtration to the left is permitted. If my
hon. Friend will let me know of any case where this practice has not been followed I will have inquiries made.

MOTOR-CAR LICENCES.

Captain ELLISTON: 28.
asked the Minister of Transport whether he will arrange for the extension of motor-car licences expiring on 30th September for a further period of one month on payment of a proportionate additional charge?

Mr. STANLEY: The owner of a motorcar who takes out a licence for the period 1st October to 31st December can surrender it on the 31st October and obtain a refund of two-thirds of the duty paid less a surrender fee of 10s. I cannot see my way to complicate the licensing system by making special arrangements for the extension of licences expiring on the 30th September in the manner suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend.

MOTOR DRIVERS' HOURS.

Mr. BANFIELD: 30.
asked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of recent prosecutions at Stoke-on-Trent and elsewhere where it was difficult to prove offences owing to verbal orders as to route, rest, loading, and unloading not being possible to fulfil, he will seek powers at once to compel all drivers to be supplied with a time, route, and general instruction docket for the information of the police and the protection of both owners and drivers; and if he will take all possible steps to enable the operation of the hours Section of the Act?

Mr. STANLEY: I cannot add anything at present to the reply made on this subject on 8th February by my predecessor to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy.

MOTOR VEHICLES (FIRE-EXTINGUISHERS).

Mr. HALES: 31.
asked the Minister of Transport if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the town of Kettering was in danger of destruction on 14th February when a lorry loaded with high explosives caught fire in the heart of the shopping centre; and, having regard to the fact that this fire was extinguished with the aid of a fire-extinguisher carried on the lorry, will he take steps to make the carrying of fire-extinguishers on all motor vehicles compulsory?

Mr. STANLEY: By an Order of the Secretary of State petrol-driven motor vehicles conveying explosives are required to carry chemical fire-extinguishers. I do not regard the occurrence as a justification for requiring all vehicles to carry fire-extinguishers.

Mr. HALES: If that is the case, why should fire-extinguishers be made compulsory on all omnibuses and public vehicles?

Mr. STANLEY: That does not seem to arise out of the question.

Mr. HALES: 48.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the Petroleum (Motor Vehicles) Regulation, 1929, providing for the installation of fire-extinguishers in all garages, has never been enforced; and if he will now instruct the Metropolitan Police to take the necessary steps to see that this regulation is observed?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): I presume the hon. Member is referring to the requirement that in places to which the regulations apply there shall be kept fire-extinguishing apparatus of a type capable of extinguishing petrol fires, or a supply of sand or other effective means for extinguishing such fires. I have no reason to think that this requirement is not properly observed in the Metropolitan area; but if the hon. Member has any information to the contrary and will forward particulars to me I shall be glad to inquire into the matter.

Mr. HALES: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that in no single instance has any domiciliary visit been made regarding this regulation?

INDIA (JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE).

Sir CHARLES OMAN: 32.
asked the Secretary of State for India (1) on what system the representatives from India who are to attend for consultation with the Joint Committee of the Houses of Lords and Commons will be chosen;
(2) whether the representatives from India who are to be present at the meeting of the Joint Committee of the Houses of Lords and Commons will have the right of questioning witnesses;
(3) whether facilities will he afforded at the meeting of the Joint Committee of the Houses of Lords and Commons for the representatives of the services, as witnesses or otherwise?

The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare): These questions of procedure are matters for the Committee, and I am not in a position to anticipate their decisions.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

CROWN PBOPERTY, LONDON.

Mr. MITCHESON: 36.
asked the Minister of Agriculture how many flats are unoccupied at the moment in The new blocks built by the Crown authorities in Cumberland Market, in the borough of St. Pancras; and for what reasons these are allowed to remain unoccupied whilst applicants are being turned away?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Major Elliot): Of the 246 flats already provided in the new buildings in course of erection on the Crown Estate at Cumberland Market eight are at present unoccupied. The purpose of this building scheme is to rehouse the tenants on the estate in order that the whole property may be rebuilt, and it is not possible to admit tenants from off the estate to the new flats without wrecking the scheme. It is necessary, in arranging for removals, to study the convenience of tenants, and this results in some unavoidable delay from time to time.

Mr. MITCHESON: 37.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware that there are not less than 258 rooms vacant on Crown property in Stanhope Street, Albany Street, and district, in the borough of St. Pancras; and whether, as there are over 1,000 people occupying underground rooms in that borough and at least that number searching for accommodation, he will take steps to enable the premises to be tenanted with the least possible delay?

Major ELLIOT: Apart from rooms in houses required for early demolition, and in basements which are unfit for residential use, about 200 rooms are at present vacant on this estate. These rooms will be used, under arrangements which are now in progress, partly for accommodation of families which are over-
crowded in their present quarters, and partly for the transfer of tenants occupying premises which will be required for demolition and rebuilding in the near future. If, after these requirements are met, any rooms remain available, applications from new tenants will be considered.

Mr. MITCHESON: Will the right hon. Gentleman say when these rooms will be used; and will he bear in mind that the premises have been empty for nearly two years?

Major ELLIOT: I am afraid I could not give a date across the Floor of the House.

Sir PERCY HARRIS: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider co-operating with the London County Council and the borough council and having a mutual arrangement in regard to such flats, so that the bodies concerned could assist each other, and not waste accommodation?

Major ELLIOT: I shall certainly consider any communication from the local authorities.

Mr. MITCHESON: If the premises are not to be altered or renovated or taken down for 12 months, will the right hon. Gentleman consider making use of them in the meantime?

Major ELLIOT: I would require to look into that matter very closely.

WOODEN HUTS, HORDEN, DURHAM.

Mr. BATEY: 46.
asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the occupants of the wooden huts at Horden, county Durham, have been given 28 days' notice to leave the huts without other houses having been provided for them; and whether he will take steps to prevent the wooden huts being closed before other houses are provided?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): My right hon. Friend is obliged by the information now given by the hon. Member and is making inquiries of the rural district council of Easington.

WHEAT DEFICIENCY PAYMENT.

Mr. THORNE: 43.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the present selling price of standard graded flour per
280 pounds; and if he is aware that the London Flour Millers' Association are adding an additional 2s. 9d. per 280 pounds on account of the wheat subsidy?

Dr. BURGIN: The present price of standard grade flour in the home counties as announced by the London Flour Millers' Association is 24s. per 280 lbs., 6d. to Is. less delivered within the London district. I understand that actual selling prices are normally less than the published price. The price is subject to the addition of the quota payment which millers and importers of flour are required to make to the Wheat Commission under the provisions of the Wheat Act, 1932, and which is at present 2s. 9d. per sack of 280 lbs.

Mr. THORNE: Does that not prove that this wheat subsidy is going to be paid by the consumer?

Dr. BURGIN: It proves that the wheat subsidy, being a disbursement, is at present shown as a separate addition to the price.

BUSINESS OF COURTS COMMITTEE (RECOMMENDATIONS).

Mr. LLEWELLYN-JONES: 38.
asked the Attorney-General whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation at an early date to give effect to the recommendations contained in the interim Report of the Business of Courts Committee presented by the Lord High Chancellor to Parliament, or whether it is proposed to delay the introduction of legislation until the final report is presented?

Mr. TEMPLE MORRIS: 39 and 40.
asked the Attorney-General (1) whether he can make a statement to the House as to when His Majesty's Government will introduce legislation to deal with the recommendations of the recent Report of the Lord Chancellor's Committee on Law Reform;
(2) whether, in view of the need for economy, legislation will be introduced at the earliest possible moment to abolish the grand jury system, in view of the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor's Committee on Law Reform.

The ATTORNEY - GENERAL (Sir Thomas Inskip): The introduction of such legislation as may be necessary to give effect to the recommendations contained in the interim report is now under consideration. It is proposed to take immediate action to bring into operation such of the recommendations of the Committee as do not require legislation.

IRISH FREE STATE.

Mr. HALES: 44.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether, having regard to the failure of the steps hitherto taken to bring about a settlement of the Irish question, he will consider the advisability of recommending the imposition of a further duty of 50 per cent. on Irish exports to England in order to bring about an immediate settlement of this dispute?

The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. J. H. Thomas): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave on the 7th March to my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill). I cannot at present add anything to that answer.

Mr. HALES: Having regard to the serious dislocation of trade between the two countries, does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that the steps he has already taken may be further augmented by a higher duty and so bring about an immediate settlement of the dispute?

LOCARNO TREATIES.

Mr. MANDER: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether consultations have yet taken place between the military, naval, and air force staffs of the signatories of the Locarno treaties, with a view to these being put into effective operation when and if need should arise?

Mr. BALDWIN: As far as this country is concerned, the answer is in the negative.

Mr. MANDER: If we are to carry out our obligations effectively, is it not very desirable that such consultations should take place?

Mr. BALDWIN: I think the hon. Member's question borders on the bellicose.

CHISWICK SEWAGE WORKS.

Mr. HAROLD MITCHELL: 47.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has inquired into the complaints received from residents in Chiswick with regard to the odour arising from the Chiswick sewage works; and, if so, whether he proposes to take any steps in the matter?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: My right hon. Friend is investigating these complaints and is in close touch with the council as to the measures to be taken. It is hoped that a remedy will shortly be found.

STOKE-ON-TRENT (LOAN).

Mr. THORNE: 49.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the Government have refused to allow the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation to raise a loan of £500,000; and whether, in view of the utility of the objects of the loan, he will reconsider his decision?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hore-Belisha): I know of no reason why the corporation should not make an issue provided that, in accordance with the request of my right hon. Friend published in the Press on the 14th January, prior agreement is reached with the Bank of England regarding the amount and date of the issue.

Mr. THORNE: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that he is inflicting a great hardship on this corporation, because they were about to issue at 98 and he wants to make them issue at 97, which means an addition of £5,000 at 3½ per cent.?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I cannot help thinking my hon. Friend is under some misapprehension. He asks if I can state the reason why the Government have refused to allow the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation to raise a loan. My reply is that the Government have not refused.

Mr. THORNE: Simply because they want to issue at 98 and you insist on 97.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: No. I say that the Government have had no correspondence whatever with the Stoke-on-Trent Corporation.

Mr. COCKS: Are the Bank of England the Government of this country?

Mr. MABANE: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the Bank of England has objected to this loan being issued?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I can only answer the question put to me, whether the Government have refused, and I say categorically that the Government have not refused.

Mr. MABANE: Can the hon. Member reply to my question as to whether the Bank of England has refused?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: No.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better put a question down.

Mr. HAMMERSLEY: On a point of Order. Would it be in order to put down a question, to ask whether the Bank of England had or had not refused?

Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member puts the question down, I will then see whether it is in order or not.

Mr. THORNE: Is it not a fact that on several occasions I myself and other hon. Members have attempted to put down questions dealing with the Bank of England and have been told by the Clerk at the Table that the Government have no control over them?

Mr. SPEAKER: I should probably say the same thing about this one.

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS(NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING).

Captain CUNNINGHAM - REID: 50.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that the Stationery Office has recently invited tenders for the appointment of an agency for advertising in newspapers and periodicals on behalf of the Government Departments in Scotland; if he is further aware that an agreement between the Newspaper Proprietors' Association and all recognised advertising agencies provides for a minimum commission charge of 10 per cent. on all new business; and if in such cases he will discontinue the system of tender and substitute that of direct appointment?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. I have no official knowledge of the terms of the trade agreement between the Newspaper Proprietors' Association and the advertising agencies to
which my hon. Friend refers, but I understand that it has been in existence for many years during which time all Stationery Office advertising contracts have been placed after competitive tender. Government advertising differs in many important respects from private advertising; and I see no grounds for departing in this matter from the system of tender which is the recognised practice in the public service.

MERSEY TUNNEL BILL.

Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to Amendments to—

Visiting Forces (British Commonwealth) Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

Consolidation Bills,—That they propose that the Joint Committee appointed to consider all Consolidation Bills of the present Session do meet in Committee Room A on Wednesday next, at Eleven o'clock.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.

So much of the Lords Message as relates to Consolidation Bills considered.

Ordered, "That the Committee appointed by this House do meet the Lords Committee as proposed by their Lordships."— [Sir F. Thomson"]

Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

GIFT COUPONS BILL.

Order for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Second Reading [10th March] upon Monday next read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.

WORLD ECONOMIC CONFERENCE.

3.18 p.m.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: I beg to move,
 That this House, recognising that the chief factor in producing world-wide economic distress is to be found in the financial and economic restrictions placed upon international trade, urges His Majesty's Government to prepare, and to lay before the forthcoming World Economic Conference, definite proposals for the all-round reduction of tariffs and the removal or reduction of other obstacles to trade, to take the initiative in the formation of a group of free-trade or low-tariff countries, and to make agreements for such modifications in the most-favoured-nation clauses of existing treaties as may be necessary.
I hope this Motion will commend itself to the general sense of the House. It would be impossible in the time allotted to this Debate to consider the whole programme of world reconstruction which has been drawn up by the Preparatory Commission of Experts, and drawn up, I am pleased to say, with a very large measure of common agreement. It is unfortunately the case that the programme and recommendations drawn up by commissions of experts in complete agreement and with complete unanimity have not been followed by the various countries concerned. For example, we had in 1927 a similar recommendation from a body of experts representing all the countries concerned, and if those countries had carried out the advice which was then given to them the world would have been a very much happier and easier place to live in than it is at the present time. There are those who are inclined to argue that in the present state of international politics and world opinion the subject of world co-operation is one which it is perhaps hardly useful to discuss. For some years past we have been dominated by one crisis following another. Sometimes these manifestations have been political and sometimes economic, and the causes have been closely intermingled. As one crisis succeeds another they become deeper seated, and it becomes more difficult to find a solution.
In these circumstances I think that the House will consider that it is very desirable that we should discuss, not the details, but the broad outlines of the policy which should be laid before the Economic Conference, and I hope that the Government will welcome an oppor-
tunity of declaring to the country, and indeed to the world, that they intend to go to that conference prepared to submit definite plans and to give an unmistakable lead to the whole world for the progressive removal of those different obstacles which are throttling all international trade. The present state of international feeling is not a reason for refraining from discussing the subject of international co-operation; indeed, it is an urgent reason why it should be discussed and followed as quickly as possible by action. It was hardly necessary for a commission of experts to meet together to draw up an agenda in order to diagnose the disease and to describe the symptoms from which the world is suffering, or to convince the people of the vital necessity that the countries of the world should reverse their policy and discuss the removal of their common difficulties rather than continue to add to them, as they have been doing steadily for years past. The whole world is familiar with the ghastly fact that there are, on a modest computation, 30,000,000 unemployed—a vast multitude which, if each man stood up and stretched his arms, would reach round the Equator.
We know that since 1929 wholesale commodity prices have fallen by one-third, that the prices of raw material have collapsed to the extent of from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent., and that, as a result of this disequilibrium in the markets of the world, in the principal producing countries, there is no relation between their international burdens and their means of carrying them. The area of default is already very wide and steadily tending to increase. The countries of the world, acting sometimes in defence and sometimes prompted merely by a spirit of economic nationalism, have developed a vast network of restrictions, financial and economic— quotas, exchange controls, prohibitions, tariffs and the like—which constitute "a state of virtual economic warfare," to quote the words of the Preparatory Commission. All countries are seeking to sell and none are willing to buy. The inevitable result of that policy, if continued, must be a world-wide collapse, in which, to quote again the words of the Preparatory Commission of Experts, "society as we know it could hardly survive." The aggravating fact in this situation is that there is no necessity
for it. Every one is aware of the fact that in the last few decades mankind has succeeded in solving the age-long grim problem of how to obtain a secure and sufficient subsistence.
We have entered on a new era in the world's history, for it is a complete world in the sense that productive capacity is sufficient to supply the reasonable needs of every living man and woman. It has been an amazing triumph of engineering science and organisation. Technicians have given us a new world, a world which has become a single economic unity, in which the distance between cause and effect has been largely destroyed. What we say in this House this afternoon may be a topic of conversation to-morrow the world over, in New York, Bombay and elsewhere. The economic life of the world has been shifted from a national on to an international basis, and, if one were asked to summarise the world position to-day, it could be put in a single sentence—that all our troubles arise from the fact that we are trying to run a twentieth century world with the political ideals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Governments and statesmen the world over, sometimes with the support of their people and sometimes without it, have successfully withstood and frustrated the wonderful triumphs of science and organisation. They have stood successfully between the people and the new prospect of abundance which has been opened out to them by the triumphs of science. As far as I know, it is the only field of endeavour in which international statesmanship has been completely successful.
After the Lausanne Conference some of the nations of the world decided to summon a world conference to see how they could remove their difficulties. That decision was welcomed everywhere, and it was thought that at long last there was evidence that the nations of the world were actually willing and capable of meeting together to consider a common constructive policy. It is in the recollection of the House that no sooner was the conference decided upon than a new hope appeared. Things began to improve, markets began to rise, but that newly-born hope soon flickered out as the conference was postponed time and time again, and sinister events began to occur the world over and the atmosphere for the conference obviously became more
difficult. National anxieties then centred in the conference which was called to consider disarmament, and then came events in the Far East and the economic troubles which have overcome the United States. There is nothing apparently that outsiders can do to help the United States in the task which confronts them, but this House will wish to express its sympathy and good will to President Roosevelt in the terrible and almost superhuman task that lies before him in that country. The United States is such an important factor in world economy that no sound international currency policy and no sound fiscal policy can be devised if she stands outside, and one welcomes, in particular at this time, those words which were spoken by President Roosevelt in his inaugural address. In spite of the economic difficulties of his country and its great internal domestic anxieties, he said that, in point of time —those words are significant:
 international trade is of necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy.
I think there is a particularly hopeful note and significance in the concluding phrase of that section of his address, in which he said:
 I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic coadjustment. In the field of world policy I would dedicate the nation to the policy of the good neighbour.
The policy of the good neighbour is the one which is essential and which must be held by all nations if the World Economic Conference is to succeed. I am not one of those who think that recovery must necessarily be slow and painful. One of the chief factors in recovery when it once starts will be psychological, and it will date from the day when there is unmistakeable evidence that the countries of the world are really willing to co-operate together. It is rather nicer to think of the possibilities of recovery than to dwell upon the immediate difficulties. The potential capacity for recovery is almost unlimited and the human factor enters into it. There are 30 million unemployed individuals only too anxious to be "at it." The whole forces of production are only too anxious to be liberated from the shackles which Governments and statesmen have placed upon them. There is an immense volume of deferred work to be carried out, deferred repairs, renewals
and extensions, none of which will be put in hand until there is hope. There is a superabundance of raw material and food only waiting to be translated and transferred to empty cupboards and shelves. No one country can start that recovery by itself, but Great Britain, owing to the fact that our financial position, although it is not free from some anxiety is the envy of all, can do more than any other country by making it unmistakeably clear that we will enter the conference unhampered by prejudices, unbound by previous engagements and prepared with plans which will give a lead to the whole world in the progressive reduction of the shackles upon international trade. If I were to venture to give advice to those whose duty it will be to attend that conference I would advise them to sit down and to think carefully and long of the consequences of failure. They would rise from that useful exercise convinced that no obstacle of any sort should be allowed to stand in the way of success. Again I do not use my own words, but the words of the Preparatory Commission:
 The world is engaged to-day in eoonomic war.
Therefore, the Economic Conference must be a peace conference, and it is a peace conference which will have a much more devastated area to repair than the Peace Conference at Versailles. There is one condition which is essential to success. Nations must come to that conference in a spirit of mutual accommodation. If they all come to ask for concessions, and are prepared to make none, the conference had better not be held at all.
The various problems which will arise are numerous, difficult and complex. I have already said that it would be quite useless to embark upon a discussion of them this afternoon in any detail, but there is this reassuring factor about the situation, that if they are difficult and complex they are all closely related, they are all complementary, and any successful step made in any one direction to the solution of any one of them clears the way and makes easier the approach to the next. We cannot expect to have a sound international currency policy unless we have previously secured a reasonable settlement of international debts. Equally, we cannot have a sound international monetary system unless and until we have a very much greater free-
dom of trade than exists to-day. Every obstacle which can be removed from that path will simplify the solution of the other difficulties which surround it and will clear the way to ultimate recovery.
On the subject of currency it would be a great help—I see that my view is shared by other Members who have put down an Amendment—if we could have a common policy with regard to currency for the Dominions and the Empire. I have always regretted that at Ottawa they did not give more attention to that matter of currency, because since the Ottawa Conference we have had within the Empire something like a competition in depreciation of currency that has certainly not improved the atmosphere and has tended to exaggerate and aggravate the difficulties of the general trade position. I would like to ask the President of the Board of Trade, if he is going to reply, whether the Government are, in fact, considering a common policy on currency with the Dominions, and also on tariffs. It is to my mind quite clear that if any important country is going to the World Economic Conference with a rigid, unbending mind and an inflexible policy that the Conference cannot succeed. I am impressed by the fact that the attitude of Great Britain and the British Empire in this connection may very well be decisive. The Motion which I am moving therefore invites the Government to take the lead and to prepare and lay before the Conference definite proposals for the reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers.
I do not think there can be any doubt as to the attitude of mind of the Government on this particular point. We in this quarter of the House are Free Traders. Our ultimate object is the removal of all barriers and the complete restoration of Free Trade. We also hold that if in the present state of the world this idea is not immediately attainable we have got to go step by step, and therefore we should make every effort to unite in a common policy with those other countries who are impressed by and believe in the necessity for a greater freedom of trade than exists to-day, and that we should for that purpose be prepared to enter into agreements and to form low tariff groups. In that connection it is clear that we should not get very far before we came into contact with the provisions of the
Most Favoured Nation Clause in many of our commercial agreements. That is an important fact which would have to be taken into account. It is recognised by the International Commission of experts, who dealt with the subject in some detail and pointed out various ways in which the difficulties which might be expected to confront the negotiators might be dealt with.
Belief in the policy of forming low tariff groups is not confined to any one quarter of this House. It quite recently received the powerful support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tarn-worth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland), who speaking in the House recently on the subject of our attitude towards other countries, after saying that it was all humbug to suggest that any one country could contract out of the world's troubles, used these words:
 We should say to other countries, ' If you are willing to come down and make a low tariff group, then we are willing to try to meet you.' "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th February, 1933; col. 1296, Vol. 274.]
It is that policy which this Motion urges the Government to accept. I will not take up the time of the House in endeavouring to explain or to outline in detail the way in which the low tariff group might be brought about or the way in which it might function. I will refer to the suggestions of the expert Commission which I think are not only reasonable but admirable to a very great extent. I regret that hitherto, when such movements have been started simultaneously, not only in this country but outside it, the Government were not prepared to give them a very favourable reception.
I have been trying to understand the mind of the Government upon this subject. The policy which, I am suggesting, is part of our task at the World Economic Conference does not mean the abandonment of the most-favoured-nation Clause or the raising of tariffs against anybody. That is a very important point. It does not prevent us from giving free entry to goods from the Empire or from any other country. I believe that a powerful first step would be the making of economic peace. I have been trying, as I say, to understand the mind of the Government on this topic. There should be no doubt with regard to their attitude. The hon.
Member for North Bristol (Mr. Bernays) a few days ago asked the Prime Minister whether it was the policy of the Government to urge at the World Economic Conference for the all-round reduction of tariffs, and was answered with an unqualified assent. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Runciman) has also addressed himself in no uncertain terms with regard to these matters. Speaking at St. Ives, the right hon. Gentleman said that he wished that the German Government would do away with that insane policy of quotas which was ruining the trade of Europe. The mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to be somewhat obscure. His statements are not as lucid in this regard as they are in many others. Speaking this week at Birmingham he said that international trade was hampered to-day as it never had been before by all sorts of barriers. He added:
 I have no objection to those barriers provided they are reasonable, but excessive and oppressive barriers 1 complain of.
Speaking a little earlier at Edinburgh, the right hon. Gentleman used this expression:
 If we can secure the lowering of the excessive tariffs that other nations have put round their borders, then I feel confident that trade will soon begin to revive.
I must confess that I am in some difficulty in explaining when a barrier is not a barrier and when a barrier ceases to be oppressive and excessive, and when, in point of fact, it becomes an aid to the development and the transaction of business. It surely cannot be that the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks that what is a vice when practised by other countries is a virtue when carried out by his Government. If that be the case, and if it is the view of the Government that they can go to this Economic Conference and say to Germany, "Your quota is a restraint of trade. Your tariff is oppressive and in restraint of trade. That action by America was a restraint of trade; but our quotas and tariffs are not in restraint of trade," the right hon. Gentleman had very much better stay at home, because there will be no possibility of success on those lines. The Government's policy has been the ancient and historic policy of casting out devils by Beelzebub. I would remind the Government that on that occasion the caster-
out of devils was warned against trying that process, because he might become the chief of the devils. I hope that the mind of the Government is not moving in that direction.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking in this House more recently, adopted an attitude which seems rather more hopeful than his utterances outside. Speaking on the Motion of may hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hammersley) last week, he said:
 "We have got to try to persuade other countries to act with us in removing the obstacles to the restoration of international trade. I do not myself despair of obtaining a considerable measure of agreement, because I see that the more difficult the situation becomes, the more desperate the position of other countries grows, the more likely they are to be ready to consider any scheme which you may put up to them which will give some reasonable prospect of relief.
Speaking of the task of raising prices he was even more definite. He said:
 While the Government will certainly spare no effort in doing all that it is in the power of the Government to do to stimulate trade and raise sterling prices, yet at the same time we are not going to disguise from ourselves that the greater objective which lies before us is in the direction of international co-operation. For that purpose too, we shall take every opportunity which presents itself to us to get into agreement with other nations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th March, 1933; col. 1312, Vol. 275.]
I hope that the President of the Board of Trade may be able to tell us that the second thoughts of the Chancellor of the Exchequer really represent the mind of the Government in this all-important matter. I would like to ask the Government what is their idea and their ambition as to the scope of this conference and what it is that they envisage coming out of it. Is it to be another success on the same scale and of the same order as that which emerged with such pain from the Ottawa discussions? Is that the order of the thought of the Government in facing this vast international problem? In that case, merely a series of arrangements, and some small reductions of tariffs in this direction counterbalanced by additions in other directions, would be quite futile in face of the steady disintegration of the financial structure of the world.
Those who have carefully read the annotated agenda of the World Conference will be led to a more com-
forting conclusion, and that is that the way out from the present troubles is not hopeless. The position is far from hopeless. There is a way out for recovery, if only the nations will unite to clear the road for prosperity. Those who study the agenda will learn and deduce from it that the greatest slump of all has been the slump in human intelligence, and that it is only by the recovery in human intelligence that the situation can be saved. The lesson of the last 10 years, if it taught the world anything, must have brought home to us that co-operation for the welfare of mankind on a friendly and international basis offers the only chance of making this world a reasonable and fit place to live in. That should be the keynote of the conference.
I would also point out that, in these days, time is of the very essence of this matter. Events will not wait. The whole financial structure of the world is being rapidly undermined. Further unnecessary delays will be fatal. I am not suggesting that this conference should be called immediately; I know that that is not a practical proposition; but at least it would help if the Governments of the world would each state what their intentions are. That would be an important step, and it is, perhaps, the only step which we can take here and now this afternoon. The conference should be brought together at the earliest possible moment, and, in the meantime, the Government should, in clear and unmistakable language, indicate that they intend to pursue, not the policy of acting each one for himself, but the only policy which can lead to the restoration of the world.

3.51 p.m.

Major LLOYD GEORGE: I beg to second the Motion.
In doing so, I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) upon his admirable speech, and upon the clear way in which he has laid the facts of the situation before the House; and I should like to congratulate him still more upon having chosen this topic for discussion to-day. If any proof were needed of the serious view that Members in all quarters of the House take of the state of affairs in our own country, it is, surely, to be found in
the fact that practically all the resolutions put forward on the days allotted to private Members are concerned with the situation in this country; and since, obviously, many Members will wish to take part in this discussion, I shall not detain the House for very long.
Some of the Motions that have been put down for discussion have dealt with the national situation here, but I am very glad that to-day we have an opportunity of discussing the international situation, because it must be obvious to all that, without international co-operation, there can be no permanent solution of our difficulties. I think it is also agreed in every part of the House that this is a situation which cannot long continue without disaster. As is stated in the report of the experts, the depression has been marked by accumulating stocks of agricultural produce and raw material, the curtailing of industrial production, and the hindering of international trade by various forms of restrictions which have in themselves intensified the very problems which they were designed to cure. Prices have fallen steadily, unemployment has risen to appalling heights throughout the world, and, as the commission of experts states, further loss of ground cannot be contemplated without the gravest foreboding.
That is the situation. There can be no dispute as to its gravity; the disagreements begin when we try to discuss causes and remedies. There is no doubt that it is desirable, as the report states, that there should be a rise in world prices, but there is disagreement as to how that is to be effected. One or two suggestions are put forward in the report. One is that there should be provision for easy money to promote the healthy expansion of trade. We have in this country to-day that easy money, but there is no healthy expansion of trade. Why? I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave the reason when he said that we were being prevented from using this money because the barriers to international trade were making it impossible for confidence to be restored. The Chancellor made that statement in this House. It is true. But, in passing, I would remind the Government that that does not apply to our own country. We have no tariff barriers in this country between producer and consumer, and, if it is essential that there should be a
healthy expansion of business by the provision of cheap money, we certainly have in this country the cheap money, and the Government say that, thanks to their tariff proposals, they have "regained control of the home market." Having regained control of the home market, I should have thought that the best thing they could have done would have been to expand that market.
Another suggestion which the experts put forward is that prices can be raised by a policy of control and restriction, but they add that that raising of prices could not be maintained unless there were improved trade, which could only be got by the removal of restrictions. I hope that our Government is not going to the Conference prepared to put forward a policy of control and restriction. How can a policy of control or restriction be justified when the legitimate needs of consumers remain unsatisfied, when there is an army of unemployed throughout the world which, with its dependants, probably numbers 100,000,000 people? How can a policy of restriction possibly be justified until their legitimate needs are satisfied? If this or any other Government goes to the Conference and makes such a proposal, it will be not only folly, but criminal folly. If the present economic system can only survive by that means, then I doubt very much whether it can survive, and, indeed, I would say that I do not think it deserves to survive.
An outstanding feature of the report is that, no matter to what it refers—whether it be monetary policy, prices, or anything else—it always states that no lasting good can come until trade restrictions are removed. That is present in practically every one of the recommendations, and it is added that especial responsibility lies in this respect upon the great creditor nations. We are still the greatest creditor nation, though I doubt very much whether we shall remain so if these restrictions are to continue, for it is quite possible that the debts which our debtors owe us at the present time may very quickly become bad debts. There is no doubt as to our responsibility in this country; the question is, do we realise it? To judge from the speeches, some of which have been referred to by my hon. Friend, the Government do realise it. Perhaps I may quote one other by the Lord President of the Council, who put the point perfectly clearly. After
referring to the fallacy of any country trying to isolate itself in prosperity, he went on to say:
 It is the recognition of this that compels the Government to attach so much importance to the proposed World Economic Conference, for it is only through a general movement towards prosperity, started and accelerated by the removal of the obstructions to finance and trade, that this country or any other country may hope to progress.
That is perfectly plain; there is no mistaking the view of the Government; they all say that that is what they stand for. They are prepared to go to the Economic Conference and, they say, they are prepared to move for a reduction of various barriers. There is no mistaking their views, but I want to know: Are they prepared to act? Are they prepared to go to the Conference and put forward what my hon. Friend suggests in his Motion, namely, a definite proposition; or are they prepared to accept such a proposition if it came from another quarter? There is another question, which is very much more important: Are they in a position to make or to accept such a proposition?
I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is going to reply. He has had a great deal of experience. He has been negotiating, I understand, for some considerable time with foreign countries— bargaining, I suppose. Can he tell us to what extent he finds that he is hampered in his negotiations by the Ottawa Agreement? I think that we are entitled to know. We were told six months ago that foreign nations were clamouring at our door, that they were falling over each other to make agreements with us. Some of them have been falling over each other here for a considerable time, but not a single agreement has been signed, although the right hon. Gentleman is quite satisfied that progress is satisfactory. Well, it takes a long time. Six months have passed and no agreements have been come to. That fact confirms the opinion which many of us held at the time that the Ottawa Agreement is a tragic blunder, and there are indications that we are not alone in finding it out. There are indications in other parts of the Empire. They are finding out that the Ottawa Conference was not such a great success as was made out. But are the Govern-
ment prepared to take the initiative in the formation of a group of Free Trade or low-tariff countries? I think we are entitled to an answer from the Government on those lines. Either you are going to have a tariff for bargaining purposes or you are going to have a tariff for protective purposes. Which is it to be?

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: Both.

Major LLOYD GEORGE: Then I am not surprised that results have not been forthcoming. If the hon. Gentleman wants a tariff both for bargaining and Protection, I do not know how he is to do it. Are we to have the same humbug in economic disarmament as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) referred to yesterday in regard to another subject? I think we ought to know what they really do mean. If the Government want a tariff for bargaining purposes, they must put forward some concrete proposal to the Economic Conference. If the tariff is for protection, they must apply their minds to another very serious problem. This country depends on international trade. The restoration of international trade is vital to our country with its densely populated areas. Surely I am not saying anything with which anybody would disagree when I say that that is impossible as long as those restrictions on trade are allowed to continue. But if the Government simply want a tariff for protective purposes, have they applied themselves to this question 1 In view of the loss of our international trade through it, are they prepared to face this question: Are the satisfied that this country can maintain 45,000,000 people in those circumstances? I would like to know whether they have ever applied their mind to it, and I would like to have their opinion upon it, because if they are not going to put forward proposals, they must answer the other question, which is of vital importance to this country. In the terrible situation in which the world finds itself, who is going to give a lead in showing the way out? Is it too much to ask that Great Britain should give the lead? [Interruption.] Never mind, we have more to gain by the lead than anybody else. Are we prepared to give that lead? It is a duty that we owe to our people, a duty that we owe to our millions of unemployed. Further than a duty, it is an opportunity to
Britain to serve humanity. I beseech the Government not to lose that opportunity.

4.5 p.m.

Brigadier - General Sir HENRY CROFT: I beg to move, in line 1, to leave out from the second word "that" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words:
 one of the factors In aggravating world economic distress has been the consistent raising of tariffs by the vast majority of the countries of the world since the War and the exploiting of the free market of Great Britain, which provided the dumping ground for the surplus products of those countries, with disastrous results to British industry and workpeople; congratulates His Majesty's Government on having established a reasonable tariff policy which ends the defenceless condition of this country and renders it possible to secure trade agreements with friendly countries, and arms the Government with the power to bargain with and, if necessary, retaliate against countries with hostile tariffs; and further urges that His Majesty's Government, in considering these matters in connection with the World Economic Conference, should be ready so to modify existing treaties as to give tariff advantages to those countries which are ready to reciprocate in the promotion of freer trade and to raise tariffs against those countries which do not desire to reciprocate.
The hon. Gentleman who introduced this question in a moderate speech to which, I am sure, no one in any quarter of the House could take any exception, directed our minds to one of the greatest problems which confront not only this country but all countries of the world. As usual, we heard from the hon. and gallant Gentleman who seconded the Motion a speech which caught the imagination of the House. Its keynote really was: Are we prepared to give a lead? I think that this country always appears to be giving a lead, and I am sure that some of us are beginning to hope that we will not give a lead which will make us ridiculous and which, perhaps, will be treated with scorn by other countries. In the last few days we gave a wonderful lead to the world—a lead which some of us thought was a little bit hasty in the matter of the supply of armaments to the belligerents in the East. We have given a lead on many questions, such as financing countries of Europe in a way that some of us felt was almost quixotic when one realises the condition of the countries to which we have lent money.
We endeavoured to give countries a lead during the late Government's career, when our late lamented friend, Mr. William Graham, with very great ability and sincerity, endeavoured to promote the idea of a tariff truce. All these leads which we have given have not been very successful, but, for all that, I am sure the whole House will desire to stand behind His Majesty's Government in putting forward any suggestions with regard to these great problems which they think will be helpful to the world as a whole. We only beg them not too hastily to give a lead if they know pretty well that there is no indication that other countries will follow.
I will say, in passing, only one word with regard to the very great problem of currency which the hon. Member mentioned. I think that from every angle business men are hoping that there may be some getting together of the Powers of the world with regard to this question. If the world will not come together on this question of currency, I still believe it is possible to make a start within the British Empire. Whatever views there may be on this subject, no one in any quarter of the House will deny to-day that it was an extraordinary lack of foresight when the Empire gradually grew up that we allowed various currencies to arise in different countries in the Empire. I believe that even now that is, perhaps, one of the avenues which have not been fully explored, and which, I hope, may have the attention of His Majesty's Government.
There is one part of the hon. Gentleman's Motion with which I cordially agree, and that is the last few words. It is very interesting, coming from such a quarter, to be told that the most-favoured-clauses of existing treaties should be modified as may be necessary. I remember speeches to a very contrary effect from those benches in the days gone by, but I find myself in agreement because I do not believe you can ever get what the hon. Gentleman wants and what I want by a somewhat different method, that is, reciprocity between the different countries of the world, until you have dealt with that question. Obviously, it will be impossible to do what he desires, and what, from a different angle, I desire, as long as it is possible to treat your friends better than they treat you.
One other word with regard to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George). He spoke, I thought, rather sweepingly of the policy of restriction. I do not know whether that included primary products, but I think he will probably agree that it may be necessary, while some two-thirds of the world is out of action, namely, those who engage in agricultural pursuits, to have something in the way of restricting production if you are ever going to restore economic prices to those agricultural producers, and thus once more give them the opportunity of purchasing the goods from the industrial nations of the world. The hon. Gentleman's ideas appear to me to be rather of a benevolent character. I think we all agree with the kind of sentiments he uttered, but I venture to submit that he somewhat disregarded the facts. There is something very similar in his Motion to a speech many of us read from the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel). I think it was when he was lunching upstairs and I was lunching downstairs. There the idea was thrown out of getting together the low-tariff countries, those countries who believe in 10 per cent. or something of that kind. I think it was the occasion when some unkind person in the audience, having lunched too enthusiastically but with great sobriety, threw out the remark that the speech was the death-knell of Free Trade. I am not sure, but the right hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong about that.

Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: You are.

Sir H. CROFT: The genesis of this proposal, I think, comes probably from the same source. If I may use the phrase, I think it is a case of a naughty communication corrupting good politics. If the hon. Gentleman had his way and carried this Motion to-day, in my belief it would cause utter dismay among the whole of the industrial and agricultural population of this country. It is reminiscent of the whole case of the tariff truce. I remember when we gave that lead, and caused a pause for a moment in the thoughts of the world, but the only result, I think, was that four great competitors of ours immediately raised their tariffs. If the hon. Gentleman succeeded, the result would be that those great
neighbours of ours who can produce their agricultural products so cheaply would immediately commence—I will not say "commence," because they are doing it largely to-day, but would immediately increase the process of unloading their surplus agricultural produce on this country, and, as he knows, at wreckage prices with which our country cannot possibly compete, and which His Majesty's Government are doing their best to stop at the present time. You would also immediately find that cotton goods, silk, iron and steel would once more pour into this country, and your unemployment figures, which have been held—let us be fair to His Majesty's Government in this respects—would once more advance by leaps and bounds.
I know that I shall be causing offence to a school of economists in this country, and, perhaps, even to one or two who sit on the Government Front Bench, but I think it is holding out false hopes to the people of this country to suggest that if you can get any considerable reduction in tariffs throughout the world that will solve the problem. As a matter of fact, it is very doubtful whether for a considerable time there would be any increased quantity of goods produced or consumed in the world as a result of that policy. You have to remember that since the War you have this vast range of countries which were never manufacturing countries before, which have become very efficient and which still have a wage level of 50 per cent. or more, if you include Japan and others, less than ours and, if you do what the hon. Member desires and get as near an approach as possible to Free Trade, there will still be that 50 per cent. of labour costs which no efficiency of ours can now ever discount in the long run. World prices, of course, are the real cause of the world malady.
I go a long way with the hon. Member in his ideas. I have all my life held the view that you can do a great deal towards promoting international trade by reciprocity. For the first time in our history we have a little brick wall round our country. Other countries have higher barriers. For the first time we are able to say: "If you will take two bricks off your wall, we will take one off ours, and it will be easier for us both to get over them." [Interruption.] Their tariff walls are mostly twice as high. I pass
that information to the hon. Member for his edification. For the first time you are able by this means to have something that you can offer to foreign countries. For the first time among all parties in the House this dread of higher prices has been removed. The leader of the party opposite on several occasions has indicated his belief, which is the belief of every sane man, that you are only going to see the world restored if wholesale prices rise. We had a most interesting speech from the tutor of the Socialist party, Mr. Lees-Smith, who delivered an oration not long ago, and he said the very first action of the next Socialist Government—he is a long-distance prophet—would be to do everything in their power to raise wholesale prices. Even to-day the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Pembroke deplored the fact that prices had fallen steadily. We are getting on. We are getting that old idea out of the way now, and we are all beginning to realise that the world can only progress if there is a return to economic production. Having got rid of that idea I think, if the hon. Member who moved the Motion carries his ideas to their logical conclusion, he will see that if there is one thing that would prevent an improvement in wholesale prices, in this country at any rate, it is the unloading of all the surplus products of other countries, which would have disastrous results to our agricultural community.
May I state what I believe to be the Conservative point of view. I believe that all those who belong to the same party as myself most heartily congratulate the Government on their achievement, and not least do we congratulate those who have not always seen eye to eye with us on this question that they have put national considerations before party. So did hon. Members on those benches who now cheer till their nationalism evaporated a short time ago, and they became once more the protagonists of party. This policy was introduced only in the nick of time. I despair of one or two hon. Members opposite, but the great majority of the House realises that this policy came at the eleventh hour and stopped a rot which filled every man in the country with alarm. But for the tariff, everyone knows that there would have been 200,000 or 300,000 more unemployed to-day than there are. No
one can dispute that. You only have to look at the figures of the reduction in imported manufactured goods. [An HON. MEMBER: "Increased unemployment."]
There are more people employed in the manufacturing industries than when the Government first adopted their policy. [An HON. MEMBER: "Coal and shipping."] I said the manufacturing trades —and coal and shipping are ultimately dependent on the productive industries of British manufacture. The effects of the policy that the Government have embarked upon are only just beginning to be felt in industry. I could take the right hon. Gentleman to South Wales and show him iron and steel works which have been closed for years and have now been opened. I can show him an increase of steel bars for re-rolling. [An HON. MEMBER: "Where?"] In various districts in South Wales. I received a letter yesterday from a gentleman in the trade in South Wales who invited me to go down. I cannot pronounce the name, but I will give the hon. Member the information. There are in many directions indications of a slight revival. The question of steel has had a remarkable effect also on coal. I can tell the hon. Member the amount of coal that it takes to make a ton of steel bars. Perhaps he did not know that the two things are correlated. I can assure him that they are. The hesitant policy of the Government when they were impelled in the direction of their tariff policy resulted in so great a dump of foreign iron and steel goods in the original stages that it is only today that those supplies have been worked off.
I will mention another fact in case the hon. Member really believes that we have adopted a high tariff which is having a very serious effect upon our trade. You will find that our imports of manufactures last year, very largely after the tariff was completed, were only 36 per cent. down on the previous year and only 10 per cent. on 1924, and in volume manufactured imports were the same as in 1923, when the Leader of the Conservative party decided that they were so great that he must appeal to the country. Even with all your tariff policy up to date, you are still importing as many manufactures as you were in the high year 1923. I shall never criticise the Advisory Committee. The Government's policy in appointing it was a stroke of
genius, and I hope it is going to be followed in the Dominions overseas. But it always seems to me that the Advisory Committee has never been treated fairly by Parliament. It ought to have had definite advice from this House as to what the House really required in the matter of a tariff. We never gave them any indication. They do not know the very question that was asked by both the Mover and the Seconder, whether our tariffs should be protectionist or revenue or high or low. I think Parliament should consider in the not too distant future whether we could not give to the Advisory Committee the advice which up to now they are lacking. The 50 per cent. Abnormal Imports Duty was introduced admittedly to cover the crisis of the moment. I do not know whether it was Beelzebub casting out sin, but the right hon. Gentleman did not prevent, as he might have done, the rapid scaling down of this duty. I believe that the Abnormal Imports Duty while it lasted was a perfect God-send to British industry and did no harm to anyone in the country.
I hope and pray that we shall see a more reasonable figure in some of these industries. The figures are so important that I must read them. I will give them in round figures without the hundreds. They are the monthly averages of retained imports while the Abnormal Import Duties were in operation. The first figure I will give is from 1st January to 26th April, 1932, and the second figure from May to December, when the Abnormal Import Duties were not in operation. Earthenware, under the Abnormal Import Duties, £4,000 monthly average, and in the last months, May to December, £18,000—a very great increase; glazed tiles, £1,600,000, and in the later months £10,000; domestic tiles £17,000, and in the later months £76,850; illuminated glass, £17,000 went up to £33,000; glass bottles, £9,000 went up to £22,000; tools, £15,000 went up to £25,000; cotton manufactures, £66,000 went up to £161,000; woollen manufactures, £64,000 went up to £140,000; silk hose, £13,000 went up to nearly £44,000. That is the result of Beelzebub, or whoever it was, interfering.

Mr. WHITE: Do I understand that the hon. Baronet's policy at the World Conference would be a general 50 per cent. tariff?

Sir H. CROFT: I can answer that at once. I think the scaling down of these duties from 50 per cent. to 20 per cent. was a most ghastly blunder. I think it was lack of experience. I want to see an average of more than 33⅓ per cent. In fact, I should like to see 33⅓ per cent. as the minimum. Since the hon. Gentleman asked me a question, I am absolutely convinced that if we could have kept this great range of goods on the 50 per cent. basis the right hon. Gentleman could then have gone to the International Conference, and he would have had a very much easier task. I believe that the vast majority of Members in this House do not agree that our tariff was introduced merely to promote Free Trade. Our tariff was introduced to give employment to our people, and we rejoice for what has been achieved. The hon. Gentleman knows that comparing this country with any other country in the world since we introduced our tariff we ought to go down on our knees and thank Heaven that the position of our country is so good compared with that of other countries.

Sir H. SAMUEL: Have not they got tariffs?

Sir H. CROFT: When this country was still under a Free Trade system, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, it was going headlong to ruin—we even persuaded him to join up to the national forces—and nothing could have saved us. All the rest of the world, it is true, are on a higher tariff basis. We have always contended that if you give Britain the same economic advantages as other countries possess, that, not only would we hold our own, but we would certainly do better than any other country in the world. That is what is happening. Let me also tell the right hon. Gentleman that since we have introduced the tariff policy we alone in the world have maintained our export trade.
I want to put a concluding idea before the right hon. Gentleman as to what we should aim at. I suggest that some such formula as this would really be helpful to the country. Each industry should be given such security as would guarantee the highest volume of employment to the workers available or capable of their own work in the particular industry, and only after sustained trial over a period of years should an industry be deprived of the full benefit of the tariff on the ground
of unsuitability or inefficiency. I believe that that really is a principle which appeals to my hon. Friends who support His Majesty's Government. I urge them to look at the question from that standpoint.
Unemployment is the cloud which hangs over the land. Every right hon. and hon. Gentleman on that bench, and in every other part of the House, feels this question more than any other. There are still coming into this country "manufactures which we can produce ourselves in sufficient quantities to give employment to thousands of our people, and I urge the Government, having regard to the fact that the protection of the Gold Standard no longer exists owing to so many countries having gone on to sterling, and so many other gold countries having adjusted their prices in order to meet the situation, to reconsider the question and to put those great industries once more in hope and heart. If we do that, we shall put a great many into employment in this country, and if we link it up with a stronger policy of Empire development and the moving of populations to where they have more chances of producing within the Empire, we shall really, and it is by that means alone that we shall make a substantial contribution to the employment of our people.

4.35 p.m.

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: I beg to second the Amendment.
My hon. and gallant Friend who so eloquently moved it has made a number of interesting suggestions on tariff problems. I am sorry that the hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George) is no longer in his place. I should like to compliment him on the way he delivered his speech, but I disagree with some of the things he said. He referred to the Ottawa Agreement as being a tragic blunder. It is very unfortunate that anybody speaking from the Front Opposition Bench should make a statement of that kind without the slightest evidence in support of it. He merely made the bald statement. I know of no evidence that it has been a tragic blunder, and no evidence has been brought either by the hon. and gallant Gentleman or anyone else to that effect. Therefore, in the strongest possible way I condemn the making of such a statement in this Chamber when it may be
reproduced all over the world and create an entirely false idea, particularly having regard to the very distinguished name the hon. and gallant Member bears.
He adopted the philosophical practice of many people of saying, "That it must be this or it must be that." There are so many people who say that it must be black or it must be white, but a great many things are grey. It is the old language of having given up beating your wife. You must have tariffs either for protection or for bargaining. My hon. and gallant Friend pointed out that if we had gone into the conference with foreign nations with tariffs already a. little too high we could have negotiated very satisfactorily, and left ourselves adequately protected, and gained the concessions in return. I have often thought with regard to the Import Duties Act that if we had started off without Empire Free Trade but with Empire Preference we might have found it a little easier to negotiate at Ottawa with people who in some industries have tariffs which are obviously too high. In this world you have to be generous with your friends, but, at the same time, you have to be reasonably sensible.
The burden of the Motion which we are discussing is that Free Trade is really desirable, but there is a certain amount of reference to the World Economic Conference which is to come at some time or another. We must not over-emphasise the importance of external trade. The real truth of the matter is that we do literally earn our living, the bulk of us, by taking in each other's washing. There is such a variety of garments to be washed. There is a very large internal economic balance, and a great many people have not the faintest idea of the statistical situation. It will probably startle them to know that only 6 per cent. of the activities of the people of this country last year was devoted to supplying goods to foreigners. All the ancillary work was included in that 6 per cent. That is the relationship between the f.o.b. value of British exports, with all the services spent on them, and the material contained in them, in relation to the value of all the goods and services produced in this country in that period. You must not over-estimate the importance of export trade. There is no intrinsic merit in the export trade at all. The countries in the
temperate zone cannot produce all their foodstuffs and raw materials and there are certain manufactures which they cannot produce. In order to pay for these you must have certain exports. As a result of a series of accidents in the past, some industries have been built up under artificial conditions, in that they depend in the main upon their export trade. There is no particular merit in exports.

Mr. DAVID MASON: What is to happen to the shipping industry?

Mr. WILLIAMS: There is no particular merit in any industry, unless it is rendering an essential service. If you have two ships crossing the sea, one taking boots from this country to America, and the other bringing boots from America to this country, it is an entirely uneconomic process which ought to be washed out, and the world would gain at large if neither of those ships crossed the ocean at all. The whole purpose of industry is to produce at the maximum efficiency, and there is no justification for shipping to perform unnecessary services any more than there is for a clerk in a Government office to perform a job which need not be done. In the long run you do not create employment or prosperity for people by doing things which ought not to be done at all. It is just as well that we should recognise that this country will always import largely and export largely, but it wants to select its imports. It does not want to import those things which it can obviously produce for itself.
We have been very modest in our tariffs up to now, and I share the view of my hon. and gallant Friend that we are a little too modest. I do not think that anyone realises how modest we are. The very admirable journal produced every week by the Department of the right hon. Gentleman, The Board of Trade Journal, gave us on the 19th January a most illuminating article. It was based on the imports of 1930. That year was chosen because they had not been disturbed by the new tariffs. On the basis of that year we had total imports of £1,037,000,000. We applied duties of 10 per cent. to £204,000,000 worth of goods, 15 per cent. to £35,000,000, and 20 per cent. to £96,000,000 worth of goods. The higher duties on an
ad valorem basis only covered £32,000,000 worth of goods. There was £161,000,000 worth of goods subjected to specific duties, and £322,000,000 worth of goods were left entirely on the Free List. There you have a range of tariffs lower than you will find in any other industrial country in the world. Our bargaining weapon in the Conference is to say to the other nations: "We will be willing to maintain our tariffs at the present low level, if you will reduce your already too high tariffs." That is the basis on which we should talk to those foreign nations.

Sir H. SAMUEL: Does the £322,000,000 on the Free List include Dominion and Empire products?

Mr. WILLIAMS: Oh no, it is not on that basis, but on the basis irrespective of their origin. The free list is much larger than that as certain goods are on the free list because of their country of origin. It is a basis irrespective of origin. That situation represents a very high degree of moderation. Though a convinced Protectionist, I have never been a very high Protectionist, because if you carry your tariffs too high you will do harm. I thought that my right hon. Friend (Mr. Runciman) was wrong in putting the tariff at 50 per cent., but if we had started at 33⅓ and kept it at that figure we should have been in a happier position. Fifty per cent. for all time would eventually produce inefficiency on the part of our manufacturers. We have to bear in mind that our balance of trade is still adverse. From the figures produced by the Board of Trade the other day, it is difficult to see where we are at the moment, because one does not know whether to take into account or not the unexpected payment which we made to the United States. If you leave that out of account, we are still substantially on the wrong side. Therefore, our currency system is still in a measure of danger, because we have to find, or we had last year, more money than we receive from the sale of our goods. On the other hand, this year has opened well, and it is clear that there is an upward movement of exports to Empire countries. That was shown in the last three months of 1932 after the Ottawa Agreements some of which were not in operation at all and others had only been in operation for some six weeks.
I agree with the Liberal party on the subject of the Most-Favoured-Nation Clause. I think that it is impossible for us to bring about the reductions in tariffs which we desire until we are free to negotiate and either to impose excessive duties on products of an individual country, or equally to give specially favourable treatment to the goods of an individual country which we are not compelled to extend to others. We have to go back to the system pursued at one time in this country, and which certainly has been pursued to a large extent by the United States of America and is now the policy of Canada, of what is known as the conditional clause. You give an undertaking not to place a country above a certain level and you are entitled to put the country on a favoured list. If hon. Members will read the report of the committee appointed by the League of Nations they will find there set out an example of both the conditional and unconditional clauses. I would like to see His Majesty's Government take their courage in both bands and announce to the whole world simultaneously the renunciation of the Most-Favoured-Nation Clause in every treaty and offer in exchange the conditional clause, and then they would be free to enter into effective negotiations. The hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke said:
 If our restrictions— which have not been going on very long— continue, the time will come when our creditors will not be able to pay us.
That is a statement loosely made; we so often talk about the "foreigner," as if there was one gigantic collective foreigner. [An HON. MEMBER: "Our creditors!"] I said "foreigner." As a matter of fact, there are some nations that owe us very little, at least on the commercial basis; most of them owe us a great deal on another basis which apparently they are not going to pay, and everybody seems unanimous in saying that they should not pay, provided that we are not going to pay anybody else. But so far as commercial debts are concerned, we are not large creditors of our commercial competitors, but we are creditors largely of people with whom our trade is complementary. If the hon. and gallant Member studies the trade returns for January, in which there is an analysis of trade showing the exports and imports, he will find that the new policy has
had little or no effect on our imports and exports with those countries that owe us a great deal of money. His fears, therefore, concern things which have no existence.
The hon. Member who moved the Motion states that the chief factor in producing the world-wide economic depression is to be found in the financial and economic restrictions placed on international trade. That statement does not fit the facts. In 1928 the world enjoyed the next most prosperous year that it had ever known: more people were in employment throughout the world, enjoying a higher standard of living. The only year that beat it was the next year, which continued to be an extremely prosperous year until the beginning of October. There were heaps of tariffs at an abnormally high level, and we were not getting our fair share of the prosperity, though in this country in 1929 there was a larger production of goods, more people were working, and there was a higher standard of living than there had ever been before. Into this world, full of every kind of tariff restriction, which had grown prosperous despite all these tariff restrictions, came the Wall Street crash, which I have always attributed to one outstanding cause: the excessive prosperity of the United States. The Wall Street crash stands out more than any other solitary thing as a cause of the world's present distress. War debts were not the outstanding cause; they were suspended for 18 months, and the position was worse at the end of that suspension than when it took place. We must not exaggerate, or allow people to make statements without looking up the facts of the situation.
I hope that His Majesty's Ministers will be willing to accept the suggestion made by my hon. and gallant Friend that there should be some definite broad direction of policy to the Import Duties Advisory Committee. I agree with him entirely when he says that it would be deplorable if the decisions of the Advisory Committee in respect of individual industries ever became a matter of political controversy. We want to avoid that, and those of us who have sometimes been disappointed with some of the recommendations have done all we could to dissuade our friends from making them, a matter of controversy. I do think, however,
that it is the duty of Parliament to say to this committee that the general sentiment of the people of the land to-day is in the neighbourhood of 33⅓ per cent.
If the time comes when we have in office in this country a Government which is predominantly Free Trade in its outlook, it is not likely to restore a policy of general Free Trade. It might give a general instruction to the Import Duties Advisory Committee in that direction, in terms of a much lower rate of duty, and within that general rate it would be the job of the Committee to make the necessary adjustments to fit every particular industry. But we should be neglecting our duty if we left to those gentlemen the sole responsibility of determining the general tariff level of our country. Naturally the recommendations they make must be conditional on the complete and absolute freedom of His Majesty's Ministers to negotiate either with Empire or with foreign countries. Subject, however, to those conditions, I think it would be an admirable thing if a kind of general instruction were given which would result in the fixing of tariffs on a rather higher level than the existing one. To do so would give a good deal of satisfaction in many industries.

4.51 p.m.

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: In rising for the first time to address the House, I beg for the indulgence which it so generously and unfailingly accords to a new Member. May I, at the beginning, associate myself with the complimentary remarks that have been offered on the speech made by the Mover of this Motion 1 I am not sure that I agree with every word in the Motion, but with its general tenor there can be, on these benches here and, indeed, in other parts of the House, very little, if any, disagreement. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Dobbie), who showed more boldness and alacrity than I in entering the lists of this House, took the opportunity of his speech to interpret the meaning of his victory. Rotherham was lost to the National Government, and lost, as far as we could gather, on one single item of policy— namely, the means test, which was the main subject of discussion during the contest. East Fife, on the other hand, was held for the
Government, but, equally with Rotherham, on one main issue. In our case the issue was the Government's handling of the international trade position. That happens to be the subject which we are discussing this afternoon, and I am grateful, therefore, for the opportunity which you, Sir, have given me of making this the subject of my first contribution to the House.
In East Fife, fortunately, we do not experience the acute and widespread distress suffered in Rotherham and industrial areas of that kind. Our people, therefore, are able to take a wider view of the problems of the country than, I am afraid, is possible in a community a considerable portion of whose people are living or expecting to live on the transitional payment. It is difficult to take the big, wide outlook in an unemployment queue. Our better fortune in the North is due in large measure to the variety of activities in the division— agriculture, fishing, mining, linen works, linoleum, jute, and even golf — a not inconsiderable industry, as many hon. Members know. Some of these industries have suffered and are suffering acutely at this time, but they have not all suffered all the time. The prosperity of the lucky ones has reacted on the others, and we have been able, therefore, to maintain a somewhat higher level of employment than other areas.
The diversity of activities— of trades— has had its effect, too, in broadening the interests of the community. Some— indeed, most— of the major trades are concerned with the export market in large or small measure, and it may be for that reason— its interest in overseas trade— that East Fife has been a traditional Liberal seat. I feel sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire (Commander Cochrane), who represented the Division so ably in this House a year or two ago, will not dispute that suggestion. Indeed it may even be described as a traditionally Free Trade seat. It was represented in this House for well nigh half a century by the most brilliant and powerful advocate of Free Trade that we have ever known. In view of all these facts, it is not surprising that the electors of that division should have taken the keenest interest in international problems, and that I should have chosen as the main reason for seeking support for the National Government
its handling, present and future, of the international trade problem. The result of the ballot shows that in that part of Scotland at any rate, with all its traditions, the Government policy is approved and the electors see in its continuance the best hope for the future.
For what is the position? Great Britain — as the Seconder of the Motion said, very rightly— is dependent upon her export trade. I am not sure that I can accept the figure of my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams) that the export trade accounts for only 6 per cent. That figure is only, I suggest, an indication of the great fall in all export trade during the last two or three years. The truth is that two out of three of the unemployed at this time are connected, directly or indirectly, with some kind of exporting or shipping trade, and there can be no lasting relief to these men until new markets for their produce have been opened overseas. Next to the maintenance of peace in the world, there is no more urgent problem facing the National Government than that of finding new markets. Time was when the free movement of gold and exchanges, of goods and services automatically adjusted trade. We grew rich under that system. But that day has gone, and we are the poorer for its passing.
I am entirely in agreement with the hon. Member who moved this Motion in deploring the restrictions which deface the frontiers of every country and which restrict the free flow of trade between one nation and another. These restrictions strangle business. Our domestic exports to the United States, for example, have been reduced to one-third of what they were four years ago through excessive tariffs over there. In the Argentine the effect has been in many cases to kill trade. I can offer the House a very small but typical example. Golf club shafts, hickory shafts, invoiced to Buenos Aires at 5s. 3d. each, are subjected to a tariff there of 8s. 7d. each, and the total cost to the buyer therefore amounts to 14s. The result is that the agents for that St. Andrews firm have wired St. Andrews saying: "No more supplies; trade is practically dead." The system of quotas in France has caused endless trouble. The export bounties of Germany, in which the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr.
Boothby) is so interested, have threatened to dislocate a great industry in which both he and I are vitally concerned. Everywhere, particularly in the Argentine, where vast sums of money are lying frozen, money belonging to exporters in this country, exchange restrictions hamper trade. Mad with an unreasoning nationalism, countries have followed each other, chased each other, in destroying the channels of trade; and the whole world suffers. In self defence— and here I find myself for the first time at variance with the hon. Member who moved the Motion — we were forced to take emergency measures to protect our standard of living: I could see no alternative. But it is wrong for this country and wrong for every nation in the world to continue these tariffs and other barriers to trade, and the sooner they are removed the better for all nations.
I agree with the Motion in urging upon the Government the earliest possible summoning of the World Economic Conference and the preparation of the British case for the removal of restrictions. But we must face the facts. Circumstances are not favourable, I am afraid, to the world conference now or in the near future. You cannot have a world conference without first having the spirit of conference. I do not see that spirit, rather do I hear the tramping of troops, and that is not the best accompaniment for a close examination of the complicated problems such as the World Economic Conference will have to tackle. What then? I do not subscribe, and I cannot subscribe, to the full policy of reciprocity which has been expounded this afternoon, but I say that it will not be enough to sit down and wait for more peaceful times. We should proceed with greater energy to arrive at agreements as the result of the negotiations which are now being carried on with individual countries. The representatives of the Argentine are in London now. No country presents a more artificial or a more harmful system of trade restrictions than the Argentine. We should strive to reach an agreement so that the products of the two nations can be freely exchanged. Negotiations are proceeding with several countries in Europe; let us expedite these negotiations.
East Fife registered a vote of confidence in the Government, but it also
asked for further action. The coal trade of the East of Scotland looks to the Government to secure outlets in Scandinavia. By no other means can the unemployed miners in that part of the country find work. The herring industry looks to Russia and Germany for its markets; they are mainly closed now. I was returned to this House because the men employed in these great industries believed that this Government more than any other, through reciprocal trading agreements, can find markets for them and, therefore, work for them; outlets for their produce. No Government has ever had greater authority than the present Government. It commands still the confidence of the people as no other Administration has done since the War. It must not fail these men who are looking for export markets. The men in the fishing villages are suffering. Their weekly income is often only a few shillings, less even than the transitional benefit to which they are not entitled. Their wives and their children are suffering; families that once were proud to own their cottages are now letting off rooms and living huddled in the kitchen. Food is becoming scarce; but, worse than all, the spirit of these fishermen is breaking. They do not demonstrate. There is no Hyde Park in East Aberdeen, or in East Fife, where these men can parade their complaints. They do not show their poverty; they are too proud to admit defeat, economic or otherwise, but it is crushing them. This Government and this Parliament have a responsibility to every family in these fishing villages. A great, proud people who did magnificent work for the country in its hour of peril, they ask now only for the opportunity for further service. Surely this House will not deny them that simple right.

5.8 p.m.

Mr. CHARLES BROWN: I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) on his very admirable speech. He comes fresh to this House from a triumph in a by-election and he concluded his speech by adding one more to those numerous descriptions which we frequently hear as to how the part of the country which he represents is experiencing, as other parts of the country are experiencing, steadily worsen-
ing economic conditions. The hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams) always makes an interesting contribution to our discussions, but to-day he made the most amazing contribution that I have ever heard him make. He intended to convey the impression that the whole development of international trade has more or less been a tremendous blunder in the history of mankind. I could not put any other construction upon his words or upon the arguments he used. But while listening to him I felt that, after all, our social life in this country is what it is largely because in the past we have been able to draw on all the world for many of the things which we now regard as essentials of life. Why the hon. Member for South Croydon should speak in the way he did about international trade passes my comprehension. It may be due to the fact that he has to go out of his way to try and bolster up the very faulty arguments he uses in favour of tariffs.
During the Debate we have heard from the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) and the hon. Member for South Croydon two different views, which have been responsible for the policy out of which many of our difficulties have arisen. The hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth brought before us again the idea of building the British Empire into a sort of self-contained economic unit, and the hon. Member for South Croydon preached a self-sufficient nationalism. Surely, if the world is suffering at this time from one thing more than anything else it is from this idea of a self-contained nationalism. Most of our difficulties are created by trying to call into existence economic systems founded on this principle. The hon. Member for East Fife talked about the tramping of troops. We all know that the rivalries which are engendered in one way or another by the economic policies which have been pursued in recent times are bound to lead to all kinds of friction, which in the end will find expression in the growth and development of militarism in all its forms. It is the necessary concommitant of economic friction engendered by the self-contained nationalism which is preached in these days.
Having listened to the Mover and Seconder of the Motion expounding the doctrine of Free Trade, and to the pro-
tectionist arguments on the other side, I feel that the weight of argument lies entirely with those who have brought forward the Motion. Obviously, if we are going to pursue a policy of restrictions and a further building up of tariff barriers, then, inevitably, we shall get into deeper difficulties still. The House to-day has been asked to direct its attention to the forthcoming Economic Conference. So far as that conference is concerned, and the relations of His Majesty's Government to that conference, very much depends upon whether His Majesty's Government have any definite views as to what should be done. As far as I can gather their views are not very definite. I can find nothing in the speeches of their spokesmen which leads me to believe that they have formed any definite policy as to what ought to be done in existing circumstances. They are not prepared to go to the conference and advocate the policy recommended in the Motion. I do not want to discourage the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Graham White) but I do not think he will find, even after the admirable speech he has made, that he will succeed in inducing the representatives of His Majesty's Government to go to the World Economic Conference and support the policy he advocates. Nor do I think that the hon. and gallant Member who moved the Amendment or the Seconder will get out of the Economic Conference, as far as His Majesty's Government are concerned, what they are expecting, because the Government is really a nondescript Government, neither Free Trade nor Protectionist. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is quite wrong!"] Someone says that that is quite wrong. I suggest that hon. Members who are Protectionists and who feel that the Government is not Protectionist ought to do everything they can to remove it as quickly as possible. I also say to hon. Members who are Free Traders and who feel that the Government is not a Free Trade Government, that they too should do everything they can to remove the Government as quickly as possible.

Mr. BOOTHBY: What are you going to put in its place?

Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member asks what I would put in its place. Before I address myself to that question I would
comment on the respective policies which are being advocated in relation to what seems to me to be the real difficulty facing us at the moment. That difficulty surely is that the great masses of the people, not only in this country, but in other countries, are unable to obtain many of the things they greatly need. There must be something radically and fundamentally wrong with an economic system which both Free Traders and Protectionists are seeking to bolster up. The Members of the Government will only go to the World Economic Conference to do all they can to bolster up what is obviously a rapidly decaying economic system. Whatever they do will be mere patchwork, because they will not face up to the real issues which confront us in the world to-day.
Now I address myself to the hon. Member for Eastern Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), who interrupted. In view of the fact that neither the Free Trader nor the Protectionist is likely in the long run to get us out of our difficulties, though they may temporarily alleviate them, the only hope for the country is the substitution of the Government now occupying the Treasury Bench by a definitely Socialist Government, which will direct its attention to the concrete reconstruction of the existing economic system. That is my answer to the hon. Member. Consequently, although at the World Economic Conference I would like to see the Government pressing for a policy of world co-operation, believing as I do that we shall only even alleviate our difficulties by a further integration of the world's economic life, I think that that would at any rate get us out of some of our difficulties. But I have no illusions as to what will be the ultimate outcome of the Economic Conference. It will not solve for us in any way the real economic problem which awaits solution. That can only be solved when the men who govern this country are determined completely to reconstruct a breaking and tottering economic system which, in the course of going to pieces, is inflicting almost intolerable hardship and suffering on millions of human beings.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. BOOTHBY: I would like to join the hon. Member who has just sat down in offering my very sincere congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for
East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) upon what I humbly venture to suggest is one of the best maiden speeches we have listened to for many a day. Even although my hon. Friend is a Liberal I am. bound to say that I find myself in substantial agreement with almost everything that he said. [An HON. MEMBEER: "What are you?"] I am not a Liberal, whatever else I may be. This is a most extraordinarily interesting Motion, touching what I believe to be the most vital question of the hour, and I think that the House owes a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member who brought it forward. We shall probably all agree, whether Liberals or Conservatives or Socialists, that the fundamental cause of the economic crisis in which the world finds itself to-day is the fall in wholesale world commodity prices which has taken place continuously since 1921 so far as this country is concerned, and has sharpened since 1929. I have always maintained that a contributory cause to that catastrophic fall in prices was the financial policy pursued by this country during the years 1920 to 1930— the policy of deflation, which was necessitated by our going back to the Gold Standard at the pre-War parity of exchange. That was a policy which was settled as long ago as 1921 and carried through by successive Governments in this country, and I have never ceased to believe that it was a calamitous policy, not only from the point of view of the interests of this country, but from the point of view of the whole world.
There is no good crying over spilt milk, but I do think that now we are in a position of comparative freedom of action in these matters, we should consider very carefully before we commit ourselves in the immediate future to any very definite policy which might involve similar disastrous results. As a result of this fall in world prices the situation first went slowly down, and then more rapidly from bad to worse. To-day we are in a very different position from that which we occupied in 1929 or 1930. More drastic measures axe now required to get us out of the mess we are in, than would have been required a few years ago, because the whole world to-day is literally frozen with fear. Confidence has gone in almost every country. I suggest to Liberals that tariffs and exchange restrictions are not
really the cause of the trouble. They are only symptoms of the real anxiety, and even the fear, of every single important Government in the world with regard to the present economic situation.
The Minister of Agriculture designated some of my Liberal friends the other day as "barrier sweepers." He referred to those hon. Members, particularly in the Liberal party, who are always talking about sweeping away the barriers which obstruct world trade. But we shall not get very much further by mere barrier-sweeping now. In my opinion we have to go deeper than that, and to seek what are the causes of the barriers which are admittedly obstructing international trade at the present time. I do not think we shall get very much further by trying to pretend that economic nationalism will be removed from the world in the immediate future. In my opinion economic nationalism has come to stay for a considerable time, and the methods employed by economic nationalists, tariffs, quotas, restrictions, controls, and even prohibitions, are also likely to remain in the world for some time to come. We must adapt ourselves to the conditions with which we are confronted, and see what we can do for our people and for the world in the existing conditions, accepting that the policy of economic nationalism, so far from dying down, shows every sign of increasing; and seeing what, in these circumstances we can do to alleviate its rigours, and trying to lead the world, as I think we can, back to some form of sanity in international economic relations.
The cause of the world economic crisis is admitted by every party— the fall, continuous and steepening, in wholesale commodity prices throughout the world. What is the remedy? Surely the remedy is to re-establish, by some means or another, the relation between prices and costs, not only in this country but in other countries as well. In order to do that we have either to raise prices or to lower costs; and in order to lower costs we have to lower wages. In my submission to lower wages is merely to aggravate the problem, still further to reduce consumption, still further to reduce expenditure, and ultimately still further to reduce prices. I am emphatically in favour of our adopting the former course, which is to raise wholesale prices by
some means or another. How can we do that? How can we raise wholesale prices in this country and throughout the world? It seems to me, by any analysis, that there is only one way, and that is to increase expenditure, so that demand goes up until ultimately it begins to exceed potential supply.
I have always supported the views of those who maintain that, having got to the pitch we have reached now, the only immediate way to increase demand is to increase what the economists call loan expenditure. It is often asserted, not only in this House but outside, that rigid economy in productive expenditure is necessary to-day in order to increase savings and to make additional capital available for industry and private enterprise. But observe the double fallacy underlying that assertion in existing circumstances. First of all it is assumed that there is a fixed supply of capital. There is not. Credit is infinitely flexible, not only in this country but throughout the world. It depends primarily upon confidence, which we have to restore. Secondly, it is assumed that in existing circumstances private savings, if they were increased, would find their way into productive industry. I do not believe that they would. I believe that a great increase in private savings, if it were brought about, would find its way first into the repayment of debts, and then into Government securities, as the safest form of investment.
Nobody but a fool is going to risk private savings at the present time in industry unless he sees some chance of a reasonable return. You are not going to give the necessary impetus and restart the wheels of industry, in this or other countries by mere barren economy in productive expenditure for the purpose of increasing private savings. That might have been effective five or six years ago, but now you have to turn to more drastic measures. In this connection I do not think it is without significance to recall that, in the second half of the 19th century, the factor which was most responsible for hauling this country out of two major depressions was increased expenditure in capital development on the railways, and electricity. The factor most responsible for hauling the United States out of the depression of 1921 was the tremendous expansion of expenditure in capital development on roads and on
motor transport. I believe that if the Government take their courage in their hands, the factor that will be most responsible for hauling this country out of the present depression will be expenditure in capital development upon housing construction in the next three or four years.
Look at Europe at the present time. They are far ahead of us in slum clearance, and in housing schemes. Go to Vienna, to Hamburg, to almost any German city and you will find better working-class conditions, as far as housing is concerned, than can be shown in any big industrial centre in this country. The irony of the business is that a large part of the money which went to create these new housing schemes came from the City of London. It would have been much better had that money been spent in this country, and the City of London would not have regretted it, because they would have had a safer and surer return upon their money if they had lent it in this country than they have in existing circumstances. [An HON. MEMBEE: "But they would be getting less interest."] They would be getting a lower rate of interest but for a much longer time. My argument applies not only to housing, but to electrical development. We are coming along slowly in that respect, as far as the Southern Railway is concerned. But the railways of Switzerland and Northern Italy, and even the French railways are much further on than we are in the matter of electrification. If one compares those countries with this country, if one looks at our filthy slums— a disgrace to civilisation— our declining railways, and our meagre electrical development,, one can surely say, "Here is a theme to which the Government should give very close and earnest attention.
I will only give one example, as regards the railways. The railways always complain that people are more prone to travel by road than by rail. Look at the railway stations in this metropolis. Are they inviting? Do they, by their amenities, appeal to people? What hon. Member would willingly go to Liverpool Street, for example, or King's Cross, of he could possibly help it? I ask hon. Members to compare the great termini of London with the magnificent railway station which has been erected recently at Milan largely through the drive energy and inspiration of Signor Mussolini. Apart from anything else, it is one of the
finest examples of modern architecture on the Continent. I think the time has come when we ought to show a little less fear in this matter of constructive and productive expenditure, and a little more imagination than we have done in the last few years.
I was very interested, as I dare say were all hon. Members, in an article from the pen of Mr. Keynes which appeared in the "Times" this morning. I think it was the most interesting article so far of the series which he is contributing. In that article, he compared the effect of improving our foreign balance of trade, with the effect of a policy of loan expenditure in this country. He pointed out that the Labour Administration had made some halting, timorous and largely futile, attempts at a policy of loan expenditure, under admittedly difficult conditions, and had failed. He also pointed out, what I am sure we are all agreed upon, that the National Government had made some very bold, resolute, determined and largely successful experiments, in the direction of improving our foreign balance of trade. But, he said, the improvement in our foreign balance of trade had been largely off-set, as far as a revival of prosperity and a reduction of unemployment were concerned, by the reduction in loan expenditure carried out under the influence of the present Government. He said that this was the supreme moment to carry through the two policies of improving the balance of trade by wise and judicious restriction of imports, and of developing and expanding loan expenditure in this country, simultaneously. His submission, if I have read him aright, was that if the Government would pursue both lines of policy, simultaneously and resolutely, we would quickly see an appreciable result on the figures of unemployment.
I believe that in that submission Mr. Keynes is right; and I ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, if he is going to reply, whether the Government do not now see that, having successfully restricted the flow of imports, having to a large extent restored the balance of trade, having carried through successfully a great conversion scheme, the essential corollary to all this is a policy of expansion and productive development at home, if we are to make any serious inroads upon the
increasingly alarming figures of unemployment in this country? What is the policy of the Government in this matter? That is what we want to know. Is it expansion, or still further contraction? Is it productive expenditure, or better and larger cuts all round? That is what we have a right to know; and that question brings up a vital point raised by several hon. Friends of mine recently as to foreign treaties. We were told at the General Election, and have been told since— and I for one believe it to be true— that one of the main advantages which we would derive as a country from controlling, regulating, or even prohibiting imports from abroad, would be that we should have a weapon in our hands with which to negotiate favourable foreign trade agreements with European countries.
I was glad that my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife raised that question, because the interests of his constituents in this matter are largely similar to the interests of my constituents. We have both a large number of farmers, and a large number of fishermen. Our farmers want to obtain a reasonable price for their produce and our fishermen want access to the European markets. And at the present moment neither can get either. I think the reason is that none of these treaties, about which we heard So much, those treaties which were to be based upon reciprocal advantages to the European countries and ourselves, have so far materialised. I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can give the House any enlightenment upon this vital question— is he taking any steps to stop the importation of subsidised goods from Europe? He himself has admitted in figures, if not in fact, that oats and oat products, deliberately subsidised by foreign governments, have smashed the market for our own producers. Is he taking any step to deal with that situation? Then, what steps is he taking— I refer to the industries with which I am more directly concerned, but the coal industry, for example, is just as important— to obtain access to European countries for the goods which we wish to export? All depends upon these commercial treaties which, we learn, he is negotiating. Some of us are beginning to think that the right hon. Gentleman
has been negotiating too long, and we ask him, can he not hurry up the negotiations a little?. We also ask him whether he is entirely convinced that the most-favoured-nation clause is essential in all these treaties. Some of us are beginning to think that it might be modified.
I beg the Government to give a lead in all these matters. Money, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, was never so cheap as it is to-day in this country. No one but the most violent political partisan would deny credit to the Government for that fact. It is largely because of the confidence in this country, which was restored by the accession of the National Government, that money is so cheap. Why do the Government not use the advantages which they have created, instead of sitting down, having achieved that very remarkable feat, and doing nothing further?

Mr. ANEURIN BEVAN: Surely my hon. Friend will admit that cheap money is a symptom of industrial depression and is an evidence of the failure of the system, and not one of the achievements of the National Government.

Mr. BOOTHBY: I do not agree at all with my hon. Friend. During the time that the Administration which he supported was in power, money was much dearer, and industrial depression was just as bad. Cheap money, I readily admit, cannot by itself rid the country of industrial depression, but it would be a good thing to use the cheap money, and cheap materials as well, when we have the opportunity, in order that an impetus shall be given, which may haul us out of the industrial depression. As a matter of fact you will never balance your Budget unless and until you increase the national income. The only way you can hope to increase the national income is by increasing industrial prosperity; the only way you can increase industrial prosperity is by getting a rise of wholesale prices; and the only way you can raise wholesale prices is by increased loan expenditure for capital development.
Instead of bemoaning tariffs, which have come to stay throughout the world, for the time being, the House would do better to concentrate upon urging the Government, first, to adopt a vigorous constructive and imaginative policy at home— that is the first essential and the
necessary condition of any recovery in the world at large— and, secondly, to concentrate upon coming to some arrangement for economic co-operation in the near future, not with the whole world, for we have had enough of world conferences since the War, and they have all been dismal failures, but with the most important country of the lot, the United States. I feel very strongly about this matter. I have not had an opportunity of addressing the House upon this subject since I returned from the United States, and my visit there in November and December last year convinced me more than ever that not only is it possible to achieve economic co-operation with that great country, but that it is the most desirable thing, from the point of view of the whole world, that could happen at the present time.
If we achieved a measure of co-operation with the United States, not only with regard to War debts, which I believe can be done, but also with regard to financial policy, and currency, there need be no fear as to the success of the World Economic Conference. Between us we can carry through anything. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade knows full well what could be done if we came to terms with the United States. I do not mind if those terms involve going back to the Gold Standard under a guarantee that the Federal Reserve Bank and the Treasury in Washington will co-operate with us in working that standard, and making it efficient for international purposes. If we could come to real terms, and arrive at a real economic agreement and basis of co-operation with the United States, I believe it would be a decisive step in restoring the fortunes of the world and of the capitalist system. I believe this can be done, and that never was the opportunity so great as it is at the present time.
Nobody can deny the vigour, courage and imagination which the President of the United States has shown during the last few weeks in dealing with an acute financial and economic crisis. I find myself wishing sometimes that the National Government here, with all the prestige, power and authority which they undoubtedly enjoy— no less great than that enjoyed by President Roosevelt— were now displaying an equal vigour, courage
and enthusiasm in dealing with our affairs. I am sure there has never been an opportunity in the whole history of the world when economic co-operation between Great Britain and the United States could be obtained upon such beneficial terms to both, and that the Government of this country ought to address itself to that task above almost anything else. In conclusion, I would like once again to beg my right hon. Friend to urge the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he comes to introduce his Budget, to produce something constructive, something a little imaginative; to suspend the Sinking Fund, reduce taxation, embark upon loan expenditure, and lift not only this country but the whole world out of the abyss into which we have sunk.

6.47 p.m.

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Runciman): The House has listened with great interest to-day to a series of speeches which have shown a degree of unanimity that one would scarcely have thought possible in this House. My hon. Friend who opened the discussion did so in a speech which was very quiet in tone but very forceful in argument, and I congratulate him upon the skill with which he dealt with his subject. The Motion was seconded by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George), who, I was glad to find, was speaking in the presence of his father. His father must have noted with great satisfaction the advance made by my hon. and gallant Friend in his Parliamentary skill. We have bad since then a number of speeches marked with considerable ability, and I should like in particular to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) on his maiden speech in this House.
Let me come now to the speech which has just been concluded. My hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) was enterprising enough in the closing months of last year to go to America. He has been back now, I think, something like three months. It is some considerable time since his return, and during the three months that he was here before the crisis in America, I do not think he told us what he anticipated. I have no doubt that my hon.
Friend could see America going headlong to ruin, but he did not tell us. We only expected him to put his intelligence into the common pool and to give us the full advantage of the lessons he has received from his enterprising journey in that great country. But it is not my hon. Friend's American experience with which we are concerned to-day. He has uppermost in his mind a restoration of our prosperity here by a great increase in capital expenditure. I have no doubt that, like other people who have studied this question, he draws a distinction between different forms of capital expenditure. Capital expenditure on work which is unreproductive may give no permanent advantage to those who are engaged in it; capital expenditure which is remunerative— and there is a very large field in which it can be remunerative— may be considered under favourable conditions; and, quite frankly, I think the present is a moment when some forms of capital expenditure of that nature ought to be encouraged. There is very little doubt that at the present moment a little impetus in this direction would be beneficial.
I am not quite so certain that by dabbling in the money problem we should produce all the beneficent results prophesied by those who are so sure about the currency theory. A great many of those who are most reliable on the currency theory are least in the habit of making pronunciamientos, and the man who tells us he knows all about currency is usually a very bad guide. I do not for a moment suppose that we ought to have shut out from our consideration all questions of currency problems, of the influence of money upon trade, and so on. They react one upon the other, but we can very easily exaggerate the influence of money changes made here or abroad. There is really only one thing which will bring about a restoration in trade. I must apologise to the House for saying anything so commonplace, but it really is true that the only thing which will bring about restoration in trade is an increased demand. That demand may be stimulated, it is true, but it may be stimulated sometimes in the wrong direction. Increased demand is the only possibility, as I see it, of there being any return to prosperity in this country or
in any of the industrial countries of the world.
Where is that demand most likely to come from? I think everybody deplores the course of events in the Far East. There is no doubt that just at the very time when it appeared that the Chinese markets, among the greatest markets in the world, were going to be reopened once more to Western supplies, and the development in their own borders of industry, at that very moment there came the Far Eastern crisis, and there has been grave interruption of the movement towards an increased demand from China. The House has only to be reminded of what a small amount in every Chinese household, were it asked for, of Western goods would bring about a real boom in some of our staple industries. If every Chinese, for example, were to have one shirt 'a year more than at present, the trade of Lancashire would achieve a prosperity which it has not known since the War.

Mr. A. BEVAN: What about our own people?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: My hon. Friend should remember that the best way to help our own people is by giving them work. What I am discussing at the present moment is the way in which, in a very much larger market than ours here at home, we might bring about a tremendous increase in the demand for British goods. My hon. Friend surely has not forgotten the fact that there are 10 Chinamen to one Englishman.

Mr. ATTLEE: What about their purchasing power?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: It can only be increased by increased activity in their own trade, and their purchasing power is increasing year by year, and has been until quite recently. The fact is that in purchasing power China is one of the factors which might have had a great effect in restoring the trade of the world. Of course my hon. Friend opposite is entitled to say, "What about our people at home?" I do not shut out from my mind for a single moment that an increased demand here in our home markets from our own people is bound to be beneficial. These things react upon each other, but you cannot get an increased demand from our people who
are living upon the dole or who have got the dole.

Mr. BEVAN: You can increase it.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: If you do that, you draw away supplies of money from other purposes, and you are really no better off; you are making a transference from one individual to another in the most unscientific way. The course of the discussion to-day has made it quite clear that the minds of Members of this House are wandering away from the World Economic Conference to problems with which we are all more familiar, but if I may be allowed to say something about the Conference and the prospects which can be drawn therefrom, I would say, in the first place, that that Conference, so far as we are concerned, cannot be held too soon. But we are not the only members of it, and it is absolutely essential that other members of the Conference should be convinced of the necessity for an early meeting if it is to assemble at an early date. We have done everything we could. Our representatives have collaborated in the preliminary discussions, and those preliminary reports convey to a very large extent the views of His Majesty's Government. We have made it clear that as soon as others are ready to meet, we are ready to meet, and we are prepared to discuss with them, with no restraint put upon the subjects to come before the Conference and, I hope, with no restraint in the expression of views of which we shall be the authors, every aspect of international trade and international finance.
I am not sure that others are as ready as we are in that matter, but because we are prepared to go into that Conference, whenever it may be held, ready to enter into discussions, we are not going to allow the time before the Conference is held to be wasted. If we had to wait until the Conference was held, we might have to wait many months. We have lost no time in getting to close quarters with the representatives of other nations whose trading relationship with us is at present under a cloud, and in other directions where we are most anxious that there should be increased traffic between us. We are carrying on at the present time conversations with the representatives of four of the nationalities of Europe and one of South
America. We have had the honour of a visit from the representatives of the Republic of Argentina during the last few weeks, a visit which, I need hardly say, we very highly appreciate, and we have had the advantage of discussing at close quarters with them the trade relationships between our two countries.
We have made considerable progress in those discussions. I know my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pembroke was a little impatient with us because we were not going very fast. We have been, at work with them now, I think, only about two months. I would remind my hon. and gallant Friend that the Franco - German commercial treaty, which was concluded only a short time ago, took no less than three years to complete, and I hope that he will allow us, I will not say three years, but a little longer than two months to carry through a very complicated and difficult transaction with an important country like Argentina.

Mr. D. MASON: Who is to issue the invitations to the World Economic Conference?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: If my hon. Friend will give me notice of that subject, I shall be glad to give him a full answer, but I think we may take it that that is one of the functions of the League of Nations. The Conference has been summoned by the League of Nations, and I presume that the invitations will be issued by the League of Nations. When I was interrupted, I was making reference to the speed with which our negotions were being carried on. I can assure the House that we are losing no time, but it would be a great mistake for us to be impatient, to hurry along a path which we had not carefully surveyed, or to enter into engagements the repercussions of which we had not very carefully considered; and just as it is necessary for us to proceed with great caution, it is equally necessary for the other Governments with whom we are negotiating. A mistake made in regard to one of our great staple industries would do harm, not to the negotiators, but probably to thousands or tens of thousands of people who may be engaged in that industry. We have to safeguard their interest as well as we can.
I may tell the House quite frankly that we are attempting, as far as we can, to give a broad and general survey to the whole of our interests. We are doing what we can to get out of the habit of thinking with a one-track mind, which very naturally is a fault into which men engaged in a particular industry all their lives can very easily fall. I plead guilty to it myself. I know how easy it is to exaggerate the details with which you are in daily contact and to allow others to slip by. We have, therefore, to hold the balance as carefully as we can, to take the widest possible view of our requirements, and to appreciate to the full the difficulties of those with whom we are negotiating. It is in that spirit that we have in the last few weeks made very considerable progress, and as soon as we are able to make any announcement with regard to preliminary agreements which we have reached we shall make it first in this House.
I have been asked what effect the mostfavoured-nation clauses will have upon our negotiations, and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) is apprehensive lest the mostfavoured-nation clause in our commercial treaties should impede our freedom of action. I would, therefore, like to say a few words about the clause, which has been such an essential part of our commercial treaties in the past. The real difficulty which arises in regard to it is that it has become the corner stone of all our commercial treaties. There are 42 of those treaties in existence which contain the most-favoured-nation clause. Although that clause does, to some extent, handicap our freedom of action, it has, on the other hand, very great advantages. If we take an evenly balanced view of it and look at it from both sides, the House will admit that for a country with such world-wide interests as we have, the mostfavoured-nation clause cannot be easily dropped. The House will observe, however, that in saying that I do not commit myself by phraseology or otherwise to adhering to the most-favoured-nation clause under all conditions and at all times.
One advantage of the most-favoured-nation clause is that it ensures a general absence of discrimination, and that in itself is a great advantage for our business men here. Furthermore, if we had not the most-favoured-nation clause
in our commercial treaties, it would be necessary for us to deal with every item in our tariffs, with probably a different series of rates applicable to particular countries, and the variety of duties which would have to be considered by our business men, our contractors, our salesmen and those who are drawing up estimates, would be enormous almost beyond imagination. Every item of every country, all varying and none of them on any one settled principle and covering such a variety of conditions, make it almost impossible for the ordinary business man to know where he is. The advantage of the most-favoured-nation clause as it stands at present is that he can look at the tariffs and see what is the lowest rate, and he knows that he is entitled by commercial treaties to claim that treatment. He knows that that is an advantage which ought not to be too readily thrown away.
The most-favoured-nation treatment does not prevent countries reducing tariffs. There has been a tendency in some quarters of the House to believe that the most-favoured-nation clause is an obstacle to the reduction of tariffs. It does not prevent countries dealing with tariffs, however high or low they may be, and it in no way affects the heightening or the lowering of a tariff. This clause has become such an essential part of our commercial policy that in all the recently concluded treaties— those between France and Germany, France and Belgium, France and Czechoslovakia, Germany and Italy, Germany and Sweden, Germany and Finland, as well as a great many other minor treaties— we have had full most-favoured-nation treatment given to us without our having to go into the negotiations or to take any part in the very long adjustments, which in the case of France and Germany took three years. When they concluded that treaty, we had the full advantage which we enjoy at the present moment.

Sir H. CROFT: Does not that apply to a large number of other countries at the same time?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: That is perfectly true, but directly we come to the region of discrimination, we get a new set of difficulties which we must consider one by one. I would like to point out in passing that, although most-favoured-nation treatment plays a part in those
treaties, there are some cases, such as France, where most-favoured-nation treatment is not likely to be continued to us. The quota system as it has been worked in France may become really a form of discrimination. It has been my duty to draw the attention of the French representative to the way that discrimination in other matters is operating to our detriment, and we may have to take the matter further. We cannot allow it to rest where it is. There has been discrimination with regard to the surtax in France. We are not receiving the mostfavoured-nation treatment there. France is giving Belgium advantages which are not held by the citizens of this country. Again, we have not only to draw the attention of the French to this fact, but we have to make it clear that it is a condition to which we cannot permanently be parties, and the time must arrive when action is necessary with regard to their exclusion of us from the benefits which they give to others.
My hon. Friend who opened the discussion obviously had in his mind the treaty between Holland and Belgium when he spoke of a low-tariff movement. I would like to say exactly what happened over the Belgium-Holland Treaty. When we were in Lausanne last year, the Belgian Foreign Minister came to me to tell me that Holland and Belgium were contemplating a commercial treaty which would give each other advantages which they did not at present enjoy. He told me that the parties to the treaty would make progressive reductions of their tariffs in each other's favour by five annual steps of 10 per cent., so, however, that the reductions were not to go below 4 per cent. ad valorem on semi-manufactured products, and 8 per cent. on fully manufactured products. I was then asked by him if we would be prepared to come to a similar arrangement. I had to point out to him that our commitments with practically every commercial country in the world prevented our entering into any discriminatory arrangement with either Belgium or Holland, and that so far as we were concerned we could not waive our most-favoured-nation rights in either country. In doing that I was not merely taking part in a debate between two countries; I was thinking of the interests of our own people at home. How could I possibly have been a party to entering into an arrangement between
Holland and Belgium which would place Belgian steelmakers in a favoured position in Holland as against our steelmakers? I had to make quite clear to them that so far as treaties between Holland and Belgium were concerned, we could not waive our most-favoured-nation rights; we intended to adhere to them, and we have adhered to them to the present time.
There has been a suggestion that by-doing that we have stood in the way of a low-tariff movement. I do not think that we have done anything of the kind. If there were to be an extension of low-tariff arrangements on the Continent, it could be done irrespective of our mostfavoured-nation rights and in spite of them. The truth is that the Continent was not ready for any arrangement of this kind. I do not know whether it is readier to-day. I hope that it is, but I am not sure of it. I think that it is much more likely that Europe will have to pass through the experience not only of harder times, but of hard negotiations, before we shall be able to persuade the Powers of the Continent that there are great advantages to be got, not from economic warfare, but from economic agreement. It is because we are proceeding alone the line of economic agreement that I am more hopeful of the future. I do not think that we should have gained anything by going into the Holland-Belgium arrangement. We should have gained no advantage to our business men, and made no progress in our international negotiations;
If there is to be anything in the nature of a low-tariff group, we must examine how far it is likely to affect our own manufacturers and exporters and importers. That will be our first duty, when we have examined that, we shall be better able to know how to deal with proposals that are placed before us. I have no objection to belonging to a low-tariff group as long as our own rights remain intact. I should like to see all Europe going on to a lower level. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth is fond of the illustration of a brick wall. I should welcome the lowering of every wall; I should like to see them all come down, but let us be quite sure that when we are talking about lowering tariffs we do not do it to our
own detriment. We have to consider first what are the interests of this country.
I should like to mention four things which might be. conditions for any scheme that is likely to be made. First, it must be likely to be effective in securing really tangible reductions of excessive tariffs; second, it must command a sufficiently general measure of support, it must cover a wide enough area; third, it must not impose upon this country sacrifices disproportionate to those demanded of other countries; fourth, it must not have injurious repercussions or lead to tariff wars or other economic hostilities. Within those limits we are ready to consider any proposals that may be put forward. I have not time to deal with the negotiations with every one of the countries with whom we are in discussion, but we are using the organisation of the Government, both political and permanent, so that we can proceed with the greatest rapidity along this road. I will, in conclusion, make one practical statement with regard to our negotiations. They cannot be one-sided. If they are one-sided, neither we nor the representatives of the countries with whom we are negotiating will separate satisfied. Unless the arrangements which are made satisfy the requirements of both their countries and us, they are not likely to last.
Moreover, in negotiating, both sides must make concession. I want to make it clear that if any nation sits back in the hope that we will enter into successful negotiations with another Power and that they will be able to achieve mostfavoured-nation treatment without consideration coming from them, they will come to a deadlock. If they gain any advantage from us, they must be reciprocal in their action. They must be ready to make concessions similar to ours and to those of other countries. Unless they do that, we cannot agree to mostfavoured-nation treatment being retained as a permanent element in the conditions which control their traffic and ours. If it is used against us in any instance we will drop it at once, and we will be ready to take individual measures without regard to most-favoured-nation treatment in such cases as I have in mind. I hope those who now are doing so, after discussing it with us, will bear in mind, therefore, the fact that while this system plays such a large part in the commercial
life of this country, we are not so firmly wedded to it that we can allow it to be used to our disadvantage. In the knowledge that we are proceeding along the right path, I would ask the House to be patient while our negotiations are conducted, and I hope that we shall have a happy issue out of all our afflictions.

6.16 p.m.

Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS: The right hon. Gentleman has dwelt at considerable length upon the negotiations now proceeding with foreign countries, but he has not told us anything at all about the Government's policy for the World Economic Conference, and I was under the impression that the Motion to-day was dealing with the World Economic Conference. He told us, with the same gloom that comes now every time from the Front Bench opposite, that we have got to face harder times. I think the country is getting more and more depressed with a Government which can do nothing but reiterate the coming hard-ships and open up no prospects of their solution. The right hon. Gentleman said that he was delighted to have got out of the one-track mind. I congratulate him, but unfortunately he has got into the no-track mind, which perhaps is even worse. The one-track mind at least leads somewhere, but the no-track mind leaves you wandering about in a circle in which you inevitably lose your way. The right hon. Gentleman told us that there was only one thing to bring about a restoration of trade, and that was increased demand. I should be glad to know whether he has at last reversed his policy. Does he now believe that that belt which he advised us all to tighten ought to be loosened again? No, he does not believe it.

Mr. R UNCI MAN: I never said anything about a belt.

Sir S. CRIPPS: The reference was to slimming. I was referring to the wrong article of clothing. One associates with the slimming policy another article of clothing which I will not mention. The right hon. Gentleman is now, perhaps, going to put the patient upon the other diet. Are we now to understand that the only way to bring about a restoration of trade is to increase demand, that the Government are no longer favouring a policy of creating a diminution of supplies in order to raise prices, but a
policy of increasing demand so as to raise prices, that is to say, that they no longer regard the problem as one of overproduction but as one of under-consumption? If the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have at last come to realise that, after having been told it from all sides of the House for 18 months, we must at least congratulate them upon that amount of intelligence.
Looking round the world he says, "Where can we expect this increased demand? China? Unfortunately, there is a war in China, so the coolies cannot buy any more shirts." Might I suggest to him that there are plenty of people in Great Britain who want shirts at the present time, and if he desires to put the mills of Lancashire to work upon making shirts he could do it quite easily by distributing shirts to the unemployed. He would thereby create increased demand for shirts, which is what he wants; he would produce employment in the mills of Lancashire, and he would enable some of the money and credit which are lying idle to be put into circulation by the purchase of shirts. Surely we have not yet reached the stage when, to increase the demand for commodities at home, we have to wait until the Chinese war is over. That is the only prospect the right hon. Gentleman holds out to the country, that we have to wait till China is again quiescent, till the purchasing power of the Chinese has been raised sufficiently to give an increased demand for commodities in this country. If that is all the right hon. Gentleman 'has to offer the country I am afraid they will not be very grateful to him.
This Motion, as I understand it, is to call attention to the possibilities of what might be done at the World Economic Conference, and it proceeds upon the basis that the best thing we can do is, by agreement, to get rid of tariffs and economic antagonism, what I might call the international method of procedure, and to try to bring about a reasonable frame of mind by international agreement. The Amendment, on the other 'hand, proceeds upon the basis of the old fallacy that if you want to stop war you should arm yourself strongly. It proceeds upon the basis that the best way of getting rid of economic nationalism is to be as nationalist yourself economically as you can be. We believe that to be a profound mistake. It is exactly that spirit
in other people of which, we are so loudly complaining, and if we ourselves now adopt it we can hardly expect our action to help to solve the problem. But in our opinion all these views are not views which are either going to solve the problem or which can be usefully advanced to achieve anything at a World Economic Conference. These economic antagonisms which are displayed in the ultra-nationalist views now held all over the world arise, as was quite rightly said by the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) out of the capitalist system, exactly as military nationalism and the armament problem equally arise out of the capitalist system. Neither Free Trade nor tariffs, as has been mentioned by one or two speakers, can be held to be responsible for the present circumstances of the world, nor will the abolition of the one or the other bring about any cure.
The other feature which has been spoken of to-night— international indebtedness— is just another typical example of the international capitalist burden. The discussion on the Austrian Loan which we had in this House not so long ago was very typical. The argument was put forward by the Government that we should supply Austria with money in order that she might be able to pay her debts, in order to continue this structure of international capital indebtedness which everybody admits, even capitalists, is vitally hindering the process of distribution throughout the world. It is exactly the same when one comes to look at the economic system which is causing all the difficulties to-day. It is the intense competitive antagonism between countries which lies at the root of the tariff and trading difficulties, the quotas, the exchange difficulties and everything else; and just as you cannot get rid of war until you get the spirit of disarmament among the nations, so you cannot get rid of this economic war until you get the spirit of co-operation instead of competition as the basis of national and international trade.
However difficult the problem may be internationally, surely the Government might give a lead to the world, as has been said by one or two speakers to-night, by seeing whether they could not first eliminate cut-throat competition in the industries of this country. Then,
at least, they could go to the rest of the world and say, "We here have the power to control an economic unit which we can arrange with you shall fit into a world structure," because that is what, after all, the World Economic Conference is for. It is to build up a world structure of finance and trade in order that we may do away with all those vicious barriers and hindrances. Surely one of the first objects of everybody going to the Conference who wants to be able to lead it, is to be able to say, "So far as my country is concerned, we have eliminated all these vicious processes. Here we have a co-operative State run for the benefit of the community. We have eliminated competition and now we are prepared to fit into a world structure of a similar sort." If that could be put forward by His Majesty's Government at the coming Conference, there might then be some hope of world economic peace, but as long as the Governments of the world go to the World Economic Conference imbued with the theories of competitive capitalism, it is idle to talk of a world economic peace. Hon. Members who may smile at that thought will, I feel convinced, after the World Economic Conference has met and come to whatever decisions it may come to, find by experience that it has not brought about world economic peace.

6.27 p.m.

Sir H. SAMUEL: We have had to-day, as the President of the Board of Trade has said, a most interesting Debate, and I must begin, as others have begun, by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) both upon the value of the subject he has chosen for to-day's Motion and also upon the admirable and effective speech in which he moved it. We would also extend our thanks and our congratulations to the hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George), whose speech, I think, pleased the whole House, and no less we add our congratulations to the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) who made a striking maiden speech this afternoon. On the whole, the Debate has not spread too wide. We were anxious in moving this Motion to concentrate the attention of the House upon the one question of the World Economic Conference and the policy to be advocated there by the Gov-
ernment of Great Britain. Had we included all aspects of the economic question now occupying men's minds we should have required a Debate not of four hours but of four days, or longer, and for that reason, and not because we under-estimate their importance, nothing has been said from this quarter to-day about monetary policy, a matter upon which my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) spoke, and which is unquestionably one of very great, and perhaps prime, importance, but is a subject for a separate discussion. So also with the question of the employment of capital in valuable enterprises in this country as a remedy for unemployment. That is a matter to which, of course, we attach the very first importance, and on which we have often spoken, but we excluded it to-day only for the reason that I have mentioned.
The question is, What should be the objective of the United Kingdom at the World Economic Conference? Should it be the openly-declared, definite and energetically pursued policy of the removal of the restrictions upon world trade, or should we, for various reasons, such as those mentioned by some hon. Members to which I shall again refer, be lukewarm or even indifferent in (pursuing that object? To restrict production is very easy; it has been done by all countries continually. To increase consumption is very difficult. The former policy is wrong and the latter policy is right. It is only by pursuing, whatever its difficulties, the latter policy that the Government at the Economic Conference can render useful service to the world. On these matters, to-day's Debate has evoked many interesting expressions of opinion, but it has not evoked, I am afraid, any very definite pronouncement from the Government. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade has told us very little. We did not expect him to say anything about negotiations now in progress. Necessarily, when a Government is engaged in prolonged and difficult negotiations, it must complete them before it can declare to the House and to the country what the results have been, but we did hope that the right hon. Gentleman would give a general indication of the course which the Government is pursuing, and for which he wishes the
country's support when the World Economic Conference meets.
The right hon. Gentleman elsewhere has made occasionally very specific pronouncements. For instance, just over a month ago, speaking in his constituency of St. Ives, at the chamber of commerce there, he used words which already have been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for East Birkenhead:
 I only wish the German Government would put a stop to that insane quota system which has become the curse of European trade.
Again, in his speech he said:
 The French have a most difficult task before them. We wish them well, but again I would ask that they would bring to an end the quota system.
Yet two days ago in this House was introduced the Agricultural Marketing Bill, which provides that the quota system shall be established here for our own agricultural products, not temporarily for the sake of any emergency, but permanently, as part of the fiscal policy of this country, and on the back of the Bill is the name of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. If a quota system is insane and the curse of European trade, how can the right hon. Gentleman propose with his colleagues to establish it in this country, not for purposes of bargaining, but as a permanent part of our agricultural and commercial policy? How is it that the Free-Trade Dr. Jekyll of St. Ives, by some sinister transfiguration, turns into the ultra-Protectionist Mr. Hyde of Whitehall?

Lord DUNGLASS: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to interrupt? Was not the name of the late Secretary of State for Scotland on the back of the Wheat Quota Bill?

Sir H. SAMUEL: The wheat quota is not an import quota. The word "quota" in that connection means an entirely different thing, and is a complete misnomer. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Hon. Members do not seem to be aware of the distinction. It should be obvious to anyone who has studied the matter for a moment that the wheat quota is a sheer subsidy. It consists in demanding from the consumers, through the millers, a certain sum on each sack of flour, which is distributed among the wheat growers.

Sir H. CROFT: Is that better than the Agricultural Marketing Bill?

Sir H. SAMUEL: Yes, far better than that Bill. I would be led too far away if I were to argue on the wheat quota. I would repeat with emphasis that the wheat quota is not an import quota. There is no restriction of imports of any sort or kind, and there is no attempt to raise the wheat price of Great Britain above the world price. That was the specific undertaking, given before the Bill was introduced, that no attempt would be made to raise our prices above world prices. When you have a quota, saying that you shall only have a certain amount of wheat from this or that country, and only a certain amount from another, that may be good or bad, but it is an entirely different thing. Therefore the interruption of the hon. and gallant Member applied to an entirely different set of circumstances.
One of the main questions that have emerged from the discussion is this: Are our tariffs to be used for protection or for bargaining? Hon. Members have said that they are to be used for both. They cannot be used for both. In so far as they are maintained for protection, they cannot be used for bargaining, and in so far as they are for bargaining they cannot be used for protection. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade said that there was a great deal of unanimity in different quarters. I beg to disagree with him. On this issue there is no unanimity. The hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) said to-day, as he has said very many times before for very many years, that our tariffs must be maintained in order to give employment to our people, because other countries have sometimes 50 per cent. lower wages. There is no question of bargaining there. Whatever other countries did, if they abolished their tariffs altogether, the hon. and gallant Member would say that our tariffs must still be maintained.
Up and down the country, year after year, he has made eloquent speeches on platforms to great multitudes of people, saying that if only you shut out the importation of foreign manufactured goods, those goods would have to be made here, and that our own people would be employed. He has used a lively imagination and astronomical figures in
regard to the manufactured goods concerned and to the number of people who would be brought into employment in this country. That is his policy— unless you shut goods out you do not get that employment, and in proportion as you shut goods out you do get employment.

Sir H. CROFT: You must always retain freedom to lower your protective duty for a country that treats you on a friendly basis.

Sir H. SAMUEL: That illustrates the essential inconsistency of the hon. and gallant Member. He says, at one and the same time, "You must shut out the goods of countries who have lower wages because they will compete with us unfairly, but if they are ready to abolish their tariffs, we shall be ready to abolish ours." On which leg does he stand?

Sir H. CROFT: I have no difficulty in standing on both legs.

Sir H. SAMUEL: I should be very interested to see the hon. and gallant Gentleman stand on both legs now and tell me what he would do in circumstances in which a country with a lower standard of wages was willing to abolish its tariffs if we abolished ours.

Sir H. CROFT: Since the right hon. Gentleman is so kind as to put a question to me, I can only answer him in this way: When your tariff is a 50 per cent. tariff, you are perfectly at liberty to give protection to your people and to reduce that tariff by 20 per cent. or 30 per cent. if the other country is willing to do the same.

Sir H. SAMUEL: And still maintain a tariff?

Sir H. CROFT: Yes.

Sir H. SAMUEL: That is the admission that I wanted the hon. and gallant Member to make. No matter what other countries do, you would still maintain your tariff if their wages are lower?

Sir H. CROFT: Yes.

Sir H. SAMUEL: I have obtained that very definite statement from the hon. and gallant Member, and now I shall draw the deduction. The hon. and gallant Member said that if our Motion were carried and acted upon, it would cause dismay to the agricultural and in-
dustrial interests of this country. No matter what other countries did, our Motion would abolish our Tariffs if other countries did the same. We had a discussion in the House the other night which has a bearing upon this very point. I will come back to the hon. and gallant Gentleman. A colleague of his, the hon. Baronet the Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto), putting forward some fiscal views in a very small House, after 11 o'clock on the Motion for the Adjournment, stated the case of the fabric-glove makers of his constituency. He said, "Why have the Government held up the Recommendation of the Import Duties Advisory Committee in regard to fabric gloves?" The Import Duties Advisory Committee has made a Recommendation, which has not been published, and no one knows whether it is a Protectionist decision or not. The hon. Baronet said, "We are concerned with the fabric-glove industry, which is being ruined by importations from Saxony. We know that the increased Duties have already made a considerable difference over and above the advantage of the appreciation of the pound, but they want, as I want, a still higher duty in order to shut out all gloves from Saxony." The Government said, "No. We are now engaged in negotiation with Germany, and this may be a useful bargaining counter." The hon. Baronet the Member for Barnstaple said, "I do not care about your bargaining counter. Your bargaining will not benefit my constituency. I want a good stiff protective duty against fabric gloves." An hon. Member who represents a constituency in the Potteries got up and said exactly the same thing. During an agricultural Debate many agricultural hon. Members said, "Why should our constituents be subjected to a flood of imports from Denmark, or any other country, in order to get advantage in the Danish market, or in any other market, for our manufacturers?"
You cannot at one and the same time protect and bargain. You must make your choice. That is a point that I wish to emphasise most strongly to the House to-day. We are often told that this country is the greatest food market in the world, and we are told, "Let us use that great economic power to secure advantages for our export trade in other countries of the world." We are told to-day that the agriculturists say," Oh,
no. We must retain our market to the utmost possible extent for our own agriculturists." What becomes of the utility in bargaining in the greatest food market in the world? At the time of the General Election, when people voted they were told that the National Government, if it adopted tariffs, would use them in order to secure freer trade throughout the world. Millions of electors voted for candidates for the National Government on the assurance that that would happen, and that tariffs would be used to get rid of tariffs. The Lord President of the Council, when he went to Ottawa, very distinctly declared that to be the objective of the Government. We even have the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has been an arch-Protectionist all his life, using just one week ago very different language, after some experience of what Protection really has resulted in in this country. I will venture to read these words, because they are most significant of the movement of opinion which has affected even the most obdurate minds. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
 We have always to remember that in this country we have been in the past a great exporting nation. We have a large number of our people who earn their living by making goods and selling them to foreign countries.
I would remind the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams), who is not at this moment in his place, of this declaration by his leader, because he said that our export trade was of very small importance, and that what really mattered was the home market. The Chancellor of the Exchequer went on:
 In the last few years our foreign trade has shrunk until it is half of what it was. The idea "—
and these are the significant words—
 that we can replace what we have lost in foreign trade by any artificial stimulus, applied in this country, appears to me one doomed to disappointment.
I was not able to be present at that Debate, but I read those words in the OFFICIAL REPOBT. I rubbed my eyes to see that I was reading the Report of the right date and a speech by the right speaker— that I was not reading a speech of my own in answer to a speech of the. Chancellor of the Exchequer. I found that it was a speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer answering himself—
answering what he has been saying all his life long. He went on:
It is a hard saying, but it is necessary to say again what I firmly believe in my own mind. You cannot expect that this country can attain prosperity while all the rest of the world is depressed."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th March, 1933; cols. 1302–1304, Vol. 275.]
That is the view of all the expert advisers who have been summoned by the various Governments of the world to give counsel on this difficult and complex matter. Unanimously the experts appointed to prepare for the World Economic Conference— appointed by the League of Nations, appointed by the various countries, appointed by the Bank for International Settlements— have agreed that that is vital; they placed in the very first rank the importance of getting rid of these restrictions. Therefore, I suggest that, if the Government are in any degree consistent with their own declarations, and unless they reject the considered advice of the greatest economic experts in the world, they must go to the World Economic Conference with the very firm resolve to use their bargaining power, if they can, to get rid of tariffs and other restrictions, including quotas, and to secure greater freedom of world trade. But can they do that? Will the course of events during the last 12 months permit them to do it? We have argued the Ottawa Agreements so fully that I do not propose to do more than mention them, but there was established at Ottawa a series of agreements which prohibited this bargaining so far as relates to all the duties that are imposed in order to give Imperial Preference.
The iron and steel industry here has been guaranteed for another two years the very high duty of 33œper cent., no matter what the World Economic Conference may decide, no matter what other countries may be willing to do. The Agricultural Marketing Bill which is now before the House establishes a new system of quotas with respect to a number of agricultural products— quotas which are to be retained permanently, and which cannot be bargained with. In addition to those obstacles, we have an even greater one, namely, the pressure of the whole Protectionist movement in this country— the pressure of the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth,
the pressure of the hon. Member for Barnstaple, the pressure of the hon. Member for South Croydon, the pressure of all those who, irrespective of bargaining, are determined to maintain tariffs in this country. The Government will be in a dilemma in this matter, and the President of the Board of Trade has given us no guidance as to whether, when they go to the World Economic Conference, they will make it their prime objective to bargain and reduce, or whether they will yield to Protectionist influences and maintain. It will be a struggle— a pull between those who are in favour of maintaining restrictions for Protective purposes and those who are in favour of the free importation of flour or other commodities. It will be a question of "Pull devil, pull baker," and I am not at all sure that baker will win.
It is not to be expected that at the World Economic Conference all the high Protectionist countries will agree to an effective reduction of their tariffs. Are we, therefore, doomed to anticipate failure 1 Is any high Protectionist country, like France, or the United States if it still remains so, to be allowed to exercise a veto upon the whole Conference— a kind of liberum veto such as existed in the old days in Poland? That brings us to the proposal which has already been brought before the House, and which has been made in the country, that we should not allow ourselves to be absolutely blocked by lack of unanimity, but should endeavour to form a group of low-tariff or Free Trade countries which are impressed by the necessity of removing restrictions, and are willing to do so among themselves. The President of the Board of Trade spoke about it, but he took a very detached view. He is ready to consider what will happen. If any countries come along with a proposal of that kind, the Government will see what they think of it. We are the greatest commercial and the greatest shipping country in the world, we have a far greater interest in this matter than anyone else, and it is our business, the Conference being here in London, in our own capital, to indicate some objective to the Conference and to pursue it. It has been said that it is not for us to give a lead; but not only have we not given a lead hitherto, but we have stopped the lead given by other people—
by Belgium and Holland. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we could not straightaway form part of the group that was then proposed, but if we had to give, for the time being, a negative answer, at all events we could have said to Belgium and Holland: "You are on right lines; we will support you in endeavouring to secure the widest possible agreement on this point," and so have given encouragement to a movement which is in itself sound. We find the world in its present condition, with 100,000,000 people, including dependants, workless in the chief countries, with deficits piled up, with taxation increasing, and extreme distress in this country and throughout the world, and yet the Government are failing to give a lead on this essential matter, but are waiting to see what other people may propose.
Lastly, there is the question of the most-favoured-nation Clause, to which also the right hon. Gentleman has referred. I have been advocating for more than a year, in private and in public, that the most-favoured-nation Clause will have to be reviewed if any progress is to be made in the reduction of tariffs. I have not, however, advocated its abolition. I agree with all that the President of the Board of Trade has said to-day as to the value of maintaining a form of most-favoured-nation Clause, but it must be a form which allows of exceptions. Hon. Members have said constantly to their constituents that they believe in treating well as regards tariffs those countries that treated us well, and in treating not so well those countries that treated us badly. But you cannot do that so long as the most-favoured-nation Clause prevails. If any country, like Sweden, or Argentina, or whatever it may be, treats us better under its tariff, and we make concessions on our part, we have to extend precisely the same concessions to all other countries, whether they treat us well or ill. That should have been obvious from the beginning, before the Government embarked upon a policy of this kind. Now, however, there is a growing volume of opinion in this country and in other countries that there must be a modification of the most-favoured-nation clause if we are to make real progress. The Association of Chambers of Commerce have approached the Government
on the matter, and that is a very significant and important fact. They have as yet had no reply. Two Members of the late Conservative Government have declared in this House that they are in favour of a modification of the mostfavoured-nation clause, namely, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spark-brook (Mr. Amery) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland), and to-day the hon. Members for Bournemouth, South Croydon and East Aberdeen have all said the same thing.
I agree with the President of the Board of Trade that whether we can agree to this modification depends upon the area of countries that agree to a low-tariff arrangement. If there were only one or two, we might lose more than we gained. But, at all events, we could make it widely known, urbi et orbi, that, if there is a tendency in the world to reduce tariff restrictions, and if a large number of important countries are prepared to agree to proceed along those lines, we are willing no longer to adopt the original position which this country has always adopted, but would be prepared to agree to an alteration of commercial treaties which would facilitate such arrangements. Political events which are now proceeding in the world have their origin very largely, if not mainly, in economic movements. It is the distress caused by the collapse of world markets, the reduction of world trade by two-thirds in three years, and the consequent unemployment, that gives rise to so much political unrest, and the working class will not endure these conditions indefinitely in silence. It is essential that we should act, and act quickly, on these matters, or we shall find in various parts of the world growing disturbance and growing political danger. We are obsessed and overmastered by these economic facts. As Emerson wrote in a very striking and famous phrase:
 Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.
It is our business to restore human affairs to the control of human intelligence. The World Economic Conference gives an opportunity for that. I trust that our Government and other Governments will have the wisdom to seize it.

6.57 p.m.

Mr. CLARRY: I wish to take up only two points which have arisen during the Debate. I should like, in the first place, to reinforce and supplement the observations which were made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) when he was referring to the effect of tariffs on the steel industry of South Wales. According to the official weekly out-turn figures, in October last— when the last portion of the stocks which had accumulated by dumping steel bars in this country was still in evidence— their output was 17,000 tons per week. That has been gradually going up until in January the output in South Wales was 24,000 tons per week; and the figures ascertained during the last few days for the weekly output in February amounted to 25,000 tons per week. That is an increase as compared with October of approximately 40 per cent., which is regarded as very satisfactory, and which is definitely put down, irrespective of politics, to the effect of the tariff arrangements which have been made.
My second point is this: I understood that the basis of this discussion was the question of the sweeping away of tariff barriers throughout the world. That seems to me to presuppose that the whole world is living on an equal standard, and that people require the same amount of money to keep themselves in all countries. We know that that is not the case — that there is not an equal standard of living in Europe or through out the world, therefore, if we in this country are to maintain the standard of living which we have set up for ourselves, and which is one of the highest in the world, it is essential that we should have some weapon with which to protect ourselves and to protect that standard of living. It seems to me that, in the arguments that may come before the World Economic Conference, whether dealing with currency, trade agreements or any point or problem whatsoever, the answer will always turn on this, that, if we can get together at the earliest possible moment a strong, dominant and irresistible Empire, we shall have the greatest possible safeguard both for trade revival and for world peace.

6.59 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel KERR: I am going to try to keep as far as possible to the idea which I believe the hon. Member who moved this Motion had in his mind, namely, that we should try to give some indication to the Government as to what we hope they will do when they go to the World Economic Conference. There is one point about which I am extremely nervous. That is the question which seems to be universal, not only here, but all over the world, of artificially, or at any rate by some means, raising prices. To me it does not really very much matter whether prices are raised or not. That is not really the point. We should, somehow or other, increase consumption. If that were accomplished, prices would rise in a perfectly natural and healthy way. It seems to me that the whole object of this World Conference should be to make the consumption and production of the world balance. That is the great point upon which we want to concentrate. If we in any way attempt to raise prices by jugglery in any shape, or in any artificial way, the result will be perfectly disastrous, and we shall suffer worse than we are doing to-day. We have got to face a completely new world. It is no use looking back on the past. Past conditions are gone, in my view, for all time. There was a time, to which I, and many Members of the House who are not so old, can look back, when the worry of everybody was to get enough to go round.
We have a totally different position to-day, and I think it requires totally different methods to deal with it. We have, I believe, got to make up our minds that some of the things which were thought madness from an economic point of view a few years ago, are now perfectly sane economics. We have got to take risks about that, and unless we do take risks I cannot see how we are to get out of the difficulties in which we are. The buying power of the people must be maintained and, if possible, increased. Our power to sell our exports against imports must be maintained. If these two conditions are not safeguarded, low price countries will defeat us and also, in the end, ruin themselves. There is one situation in this country which I have heard described as serious, but which I think is one of great strength, that is, that we are the great consuming market of the world. Because we are that, I believe we are in a position of great strength.
that is, that we are the great consuming market of world. Because we are that, I belie we are in a position of great strength.
We know quite well that other countries are dependent for their prosperity upon our markets. We ought to bear that in mind very carefully in discussing this matter. I was very worried by the description of the difficulties the Minister put before us this afternoon— difficulties which he had in dealing with world affairs. It does appear that the whole world has got into a condition so complicated, and so difficult, that it seems to me a problem almost impossible to unravel. I would, therefore, ask the Minister, and the Government, to try to visualise this new world; to try to forget altogether the past, and things successful in the past, and see whether we cannot scrap a great deal of what is at present looked upon as fundamental in dealing with world affairs.
I propose very shortly to put forward two very simple suggestions. We have heard a great deal about tariffs this afternoon, and the simple proposition I wish to place before the House has relation to the one anxiety of us all— the methods by which we can put a restriction on our imports without ultimately damaging our export trade. I have studied this question with many experts and many economists, and have found no one put up any argument which shakes my belief in the proposal. It is simply that we should decide to put on a tariff of 25, or 30, or 50 per cent. I do not mind what figure it is, but I will take it as being a 30 per cent. tariff on all imports into this country. But if any country, individual, company, or corporation, anywhere outside these shores, buys anything from this country he, or they, shall have the right to import into this country an equivalent value of goods free of all duties. By that process there should be a tendency to balance our trade. The process would also have the effect of helping to lower our export prices in the markets of the world. That system if adopted would not interfere with Ottawa, for, if we wished, we could have our Preferences within that system.
Anyone, whether he is a Frenchman, Italian, or anyone else, who is going to import goods into this country would, if
he did not make an equivalent purchase, have to pay the whole duty. There would be a market in these credits. Of course they would never be the value of the duty, but would vary according to demand. It seems to me that this system would encourage our exports and balance our trade. If we adopted such a system, and other countries adopted it, there would be no limit to the business which would go on internationally in the world. We would get back, as far as we could, to the old idea of barter and interchange of goods throughout the world. That is the proposition, and I do hope the House will give its consideration to that simple idea. It would get rid of the terribly complicated business to which the Minister referred this afternoon.
My second proposition is one which I almost thought the Minister was himself going to suggest when he mentioned China and Japan. There are many people to-day in favour of doing something about the currency of these countries. There is certainly, I believe, 50 per cent. of the population of the world living under a depreciated silver currency. By some stabilisation of silver, in ratio to gold, we have immediately a means of increasing our customers to a most enormous extent. These are two ideas, which I commend to the Government for consideration when they go to the World Conference. It will simplify everything if they can be brought about, and, if once instituted, they will be readily adopted by everyone. I would like to impress upon the Government that the past is gone, and I do not believe the experiences we have had in the past are any good in the present complicated world conditions. The Government, I hope, will take the risk, and try something completely new in the direction I have indicated.

7.11 p.m.

Sir JOHN SANDEMAN ALLEN: We have had an interesting Debate, and it has travelled over a large number of subjects. I would like, for a few moments, to go back to the starting point of the Motion, namely, what should be done with regard to the World Economic Conference. I listened with interest to the suggestions made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Montrose (Lieut.-Colonel Kerr). He brought forward two suggestions, regarding one of which he
said he had consulted many experts and that none had found any flaw in it. As to the other one, I could make a present to him of a dozen experts who would find flaws in it at once. These matters should, however, be fully considered in connection with the World Conference. But to go back to the general discussion, there has been a tendency to treat this matter too much as if it were a question of Free Trade and Protection. There are a great many other questions, and a great many other barriers, which have to be considered.
Some people argue that it is the Gold Standard which has caused all our trouble. Others say that trade barriers are the cause of our trouble. As to the Gold Standard, the bulk of our business people are thankful to know our Government take the line that before this question is considered we must have the other difficulties, which make it impossible to work the ordinary trade and finance of the country in a normal manner, out of the way. We had an interesting suggestion also from the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams), but I think that if we look at the present position of affairs we shall find that one of the great troubles is the enormous amount of indebtedness, and the incapacity to meet that indebtedness. That is a matter which the World Conference will have to consider. That Conference will have to consider how far it can bring creditors and debtors more closely together. If a creditor country is to be sure of getting its money, it must take care that it can receive the payment in goods or services. It has got to take care it does not shut out that means of payment. That has been the trouble in a great many quarters.
I do not agree with the right hon. -Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) that you cannot protect and bargain at the same time. I think it all depends on how you work. I submit that the two legs can be stood upon, if it is done wisely. There are certain limits which must be insisted on to prevent the swamping of the country in an improper manner, and the rest can be used for bargaining. It is not a question of Free Trade or Protection. It is a business transaction. I cannot help feeling that we must get closer together in all these questions. It is a primary point that
creditor nations should get in touch with debtors, because sanctity of contract is a very vital matter. I feel that all these points have to be dealt with in connection with the conference.
There is another matter which has not been referred to, though I cannot help feeling that the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. White) had it in his mind. I think that he has in mind, as I and many others have, the serious impediment to the shipping of the country caused by the subsidies that other countries are giving. The United States shut out our goods by an impossibly high tariff and kill our services by a subsidised mercantile fleet, which costs more in subsidies than it earns in freights. We ought to stop that system, and I hope the Government will go to the conference determined to tackle this very vital and serious point. I want to refer to another point which has been mentioned in another way in the Motion. We cannot hope to break down tariffs and to get a low tariff movement in a moment. We have put our tariffs on in order to bring tariffs down ultimately. We shall never get every nation to agree at once to make these alterations, but surely we can in the meantime find quite a number who are prepared to work with us on reasonable grounds. If you cannot get it by universal agreement, you can by bi-lateral and multi-lateral agreements secure a good deal in the direction that we all want, and, if so, why not come to terms with those who are sensible; in other words, with people who are not going in for excessively high tariffs?
Many of us were pleased to hear what the President of the Board of Trade said about the most-favoured-nation clause. We want to make reasonable arrangements with different countries, and we must make it a condition that, if they do not give us reciprocity, we must put them in a different category from those who do. In other words, we have to divide the nations of the world into those who are friends and those who are not, those who are willing to lead a family life together on the principle of give and take, and those who are not. All these points have to be considered very carefully. I am confident, in spite of the suggestion that the Government have no scheme and no ideas, that the Government have already formed very definite ideas and will continue to do so and,
while they may not agree with extreme Free Trade views on the one side or extreme Protectionist views on the other, they will be in harmony with the general views of business men, who are quite satisfied that the Government have done an enormous amount by balancing our trade and establishing our credit.
After all, it is confidence that counts for so much and, when we look back two years, we know the confidence that the country has inspired and the credit, which goes hand in hand with confidence, is to-day better than it has been before, and I am sure that at the Conference we shall help to move towards better days. We have to clear away not only high tariffs but exchange restrictions and maritime subsidies. I intensely dislike quotas, and I am very much inclined to agree with what has been said on the point, but there may be reasons and excuses for that, as for many things that are done, particularly if they are only little ones. At the same time, there are all these difficulties in the way which we must set ourselves gradually to clear up. Let us deal with the whole question as a big commercial nation out not for theories but for practical results. We want trade improved in this country and in the world. We cannot improve our own trade if we do not improve the trade of the world. While we cannot accept the Motion, I am sure the discussion has been of great value.

7.22 p.m.

Mr. JAMES REID: I think it has been assumed rather widely, particularly by those who sit below me, that the most important, indeed the only important, thing that the World Economic Conference has to deal with is the reduction of tariffs. It appears to me that tariffs are only one and not the most important element that the Conference has to deal with. It has been suggested that it is not possible at the same time to protect your own market and to bargain successfully with the foreigner, but, surely, the matter is very simple. Let us take, for instance, the case of agriculture. I have not the exact figures in my head, but let us assume that the utmost proportion of our foodstuffs that the British producer can produce is 50 per cent. You protected the British producer, that is, you insist that 50 per cent. shall be grown in this country, and you still
have the other 50 per cent. to bargain with. It is the simplest thing in the world to protect your own producer, who cannot fill the whole demand, and go to your various suppliers and say: "You may have a half, or a third, or two-thirds, of the foreign quota on condition that you give this, that or the other." I can see no inconsistency whatever between the fullest protection of our own market and the fullest use of our bargaining power in respect of the other 50 per cent.

Sir H. SAMUEL: What would the Dominions say?

Mr. REID: I was including the Dominions in the figure of 50 per cent. I do not think the home market can produce 50 per cent. of our foodstuffs. We have a very large surplus percentage to bargain with after having satisfied the immediate possibility of production in this country and the Dominions.
May I make one suggestion about the Economic Conference? It seems to me that, since the War, we have failed time and time again at these conferences because we have tried to do too much. We failed to a large extent in the Peace Conferences, in setting up the League of Nations and in the conferences that have followed because we have tried to abolish war altogether. We have set up something which is going beyond what the nations of the world will support. It was no use starting "No More War" and setting up a League of Nations which was going further than the then state of public opinion would warrant. Do not let us have an economic League of Nations. Do not let us try to work out the World Economic Conference within the limits of the present system. Let us rather try to make the present system work than to invent some new system on the spur of the moment. It is by no means impossible within the sphere of economic nationalism to make things work and, if you go to the World Economic Conference thinking you are going to abolish economic nationalism and substitute an internationalism which only hon. Members opposite can see, even on the furthest horizon, I think you are giving away all the chance that you have of securing very substantial results.
The problem is set forth in the agenda plainly for everyone to read. It is: How
are we going to get the mechanism of distribution working again? It is true that the main obstacle is the lack of freedom of exchange. There are two ways of tackling that question. The simplest way is to consider how it grew up. These restrictions have grown up in the last few years because prices fell away to such an extent that countries could not afford to go on without imposing restrictions. Surely, rather than try to break the ice with a sledge hammer, it would be very much better to direct your policy so as to get such a rise in prices as will render the restrictions unnecessary. The restrictions were caused by falling prices. As soon as you get rising prices, countries will be able to take off the restrictions which they were forced to put on by falling prices. I agree with those who put in the forefront of what they think should be the main objective of the Conference financial and currency problems rather than problems purely of tariffs and restrictions of that kind. I believe the currency and financial

problem is the more fundamental. If you tackle that satisfactorily, the other problem will to a very great extent solve itself.

Mr. ENTWISTLE rose—

Mr. WHITErose in his place, and claimed to move "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

7.29 p.m.

Mr. ENTWISTLE: The Motion emphasises one aspect of what will come before the World Economic Conference.

Mr. WHITErose in his place, and claimed to move "That the Question be now put."

Question put accordingly, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 58; Noes, 203.

Division No. 83.]
AYES.
[7.30 p.m.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Dyke
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro'.W.)
Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton


Attlee, Clement Richard
Groves, Thomas E.
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot


Banfield, John William
Grundy, Thomas W.
Mander, Geoffrey le M.


Bernays, Robert
Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)
Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E.)


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Maxton, James


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfleld)
Hamilton, Sir R. W.(Orkney & Zetl'nd)
Molson, A. Hugh Elsdale


Buchanan, George
Harris, Sir Percy
Parkinson, John Allen


Cape, Thomas
Hirst, George Henry
Rathbone, Eleanor


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Holdsworth, Herbert
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Cove, William G.
Janner, Barnett
Thorne, William James


Cripps, Sir Stafford
John, William
Tinker, John Joseph


Daggar, George
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Joslah


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
White, Henry Graham


Dobble, William
Jones, Morgan (Caerphitly)
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Edwards, Charles
Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George
Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univ.)
Liewellyn-Jones, Frederick
Williams, Thomas (York, Do Valley)


Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)
Logan, David Gilbert



Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Lunn, William
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Mr. Walter Rea and Sir Murdoch


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
McEntee, Valentine L.
McKenzie Wood.


Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
McGovern, John



NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut-Colonel
Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Croom-Johnson, R. P.


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Burnett, John George
Cross, R. H.


Albery, Irving James
Campbell, Edward Taswell (Bromley)
Crossley, A. C.


Allen, Sir J. Sandeman (Liverp'l, W.)
Campbell, Vice-Admrial G. (Burnley)
Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard


Aske, Sir Robert William
Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset,Yeovil)


Atkinson, Cyril
Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Denman, Hon. R. D.


Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Carver, Major William H.
Dickle, John P.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Donner, P. W.


Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th.C.)
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Doran, Edward


Bl'ndell, Jamas
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Duggan, Hubert John


Borodale, Viscount
Colfox, Major William Philip
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)


Boulton, W. W.
Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Eady, George H.


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Cook, Thomas A.
Eastwood, John Francis


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Cooke, Douglas
Edmondson, Major A. J.


Briscoe, Capt. Richard George
Cooper, A. Duff
Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey


Broadbent, Colonel John
Copeland, Ida
Elmley, Viscount


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry
Emrys-Evans, P. V.


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd, Hexham)
Craven-Ellis, William
Entwistle, Cyril Fullard


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C.(Berks., Newb'y)
Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander
Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)


Evans, Capt. Arthur (Cardiff, S.)
McCorquodale, M. S.
Salmon, Sir Isidore


Everard, W. Lindsay
McKie, John Hamilton
Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)


Ford, Sir Patrick J.
McLean, Major Sir Alan
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Ganzonl, Sir John
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Gault, Lieut.-Col. A. Hamilton
Macmillan, Maurice Harold
Savery, Samuel Servington


Glossop, C. W. H.
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Goldie, Noel B.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Goodman, Colonel Albert W
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Shute, Colonel J. J.


Gower, Sir Robert
Martin, Thomas B.
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Smiles, Lieut.-Col. Sir Walter D.


Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Meller, Richard James
Smith, Sir Jonah W. (Barrow-in-F.)


Greene, William P. C,
Merrlman, Sir F. Boyd
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Moreing, Adrian C.
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Grimston, R. V.
Morgan, Robert H.
Somerville, Annesley A (Windsor)


Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Morris, Owen Temple (Cardiff, E.)
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T, E.


Guy, J. C. Morrison
Morrison, William Shepherd
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J


Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Munro, Patrick
Spears, Brigadier-General Edward L.


Hales, Harold K.
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Spender-Clay, Rt. Hon. Herbert H.


Hanley, Dennis A.
Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)
Stanley, Lord (Lancaster, Fylde)


Harbord, Arthur
Normand, Wilfrid Guild
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)


Hartland, George A.
Nunn, William
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
O'Connor, Terence James
Stones, James


Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
O'Donovan, Dr. William James
Storey, Samuel


Hepworth, Joseph
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G.A.
Strauss, Edward A.


Herbert, Capt. S. (Abbey Division)
Pearson, William G.
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Hore-Bellsha, Leslie
Penny, sir George
Summersby, Charles H.


Hornby, Frank
Perkins, Walter R. D.
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)


Horobin, Ian M.
Peters, Dr. Sidney John
Thompson, Luke


Horsbrugh, Florence
Petherick, M.
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Howard, Tom Forrest
Peto, Geoffrey K.(W'verh'pt'n,Bliston)
Thorp, Linton Theodora


Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Potter, John
Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Kenyon


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Ralkes, Henry V. A. M.
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Hurst, Sir Gerald B.
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Jennings, Roland
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Joel, Dudley J. Barnato
Ramsden, Sir Eugene
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Ker, J. Campbell
Ray, Sir William
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John S.


Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Kerr, Hamilton W.
Reid, David D. (County Down)
Wells, Sydney Richard


Kimball, Lawrence
Raid, James S. C. (Stirling)
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Lamb, Sir Joseph Quinton
Remer, John Ft.
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Rentoul, Sir Gervals S.
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Law, Sir Alfred
Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.
Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)


Lees-Jones, John
Roberts, Sir Samuel (Ecclesall)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel Georgs


Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Ropner, Colonel L.
Wise, Alfred R.


Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Womersley, Walter James


Liddall, Walter S.
Runge, Norah Cecil



Liewellin, Major John J.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES—


Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn. G.(Wd. Gr'n)
Russell, Richard John (Eddisbury)
Sir Henry Croft and Mr.Clarry.


Lockwood, Capt. J. H. (Shipley)
Rutherford, John (Edmonton)



Question put, and agreed to.

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

Mr. MANDERrose—

It being after half-past Seven of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

RURAL INDUSTRIES.

7.40 p.m.

Brigadier-General CLIFTON BROWN: I beg to move,
 That this House is of opinion that the encouragement of rural industries and the maintenance of a thriving and contented village life, together with a prosperous agriculture, are vital to this country, and urges His Majesty's Government to take every possible step in this direction.
When I put down this Motion, I inadvertently gave notice that I would call attention to the plight of rural industries. I meant really to call attention to the condition of rural industries. I do not want it to be thought that rural industries are
grumbling at a condition of affairs which is not being shared by many other industries at the present time. When I moved a similar Motion in March about six years ago, I went a good deal into the historical details of rural industries in Tudor times and into other matters, and I was twitted by an hon. Member opposite as having begun my speech with William the Conqueror and finished it with the Minister of Agriculture. I do not propose to go into historical details to-night, nor do I wish to alarm my right hon. Friend by saying that all the ills from which the countryside suffers have anything to do with him. It has to do far more with past generations in this country. We must realise even in the country that as things change so also does the countryside. The old industries which used to be essential are no longer essential.
Thousands of acres of the best agricultural land are built upon yearly. I was interested in a cutting which I saw
in the "Times" of yesterday, which stated that agriculture in Surrey had lost 3,000 acres in 10 years owing to land being built upon. I often think that the loss of agricultural land for which agriculture has often been blamed has been more due to the spreading of the towns into rural England that is realised. We have to face the fact that the big towns are spreading and that rural England is becoming urbanised. We must also realise that many of the rural industries which were necessary for our fathers and our forefathers are no longer necessary. As far as village life and life in the far off rural areas are concerned, the cinema, wireless and motors have very much altered the outlook of our village folk.
When people coming to this country from Eastern countries, India, or from European countries approach the cliffs of Dover, or go up the Bristol Channel, to Avonmouth, or wherever they hit rural England, they feel that there is a different land before them than that from which they have come. The fields are greener, and they are smaller. If you happen to go to Kent a little later than this in the year you will see the most wonderful garden in the whole of the world. I think that Kent has been well described as "England's garden." England is very different from other countries, and our countryside is a very great asset, which we should do all we can to preserve. When you come to talk to the villagers in our villages, they may Be more reserved than the foreigner, but they have a sense of justice and fair play that strikes you almost at once as different from what you meet in a foreign land. They are bred up with fewer comforts, but they are healthier from their harsher circumstances. They learn from nature, by which they are surrounded, to understand nature—human nature—and they learn more patiently and truly to distinguish what is false and what is true. How to maintain, under modern condition, what Shakespeare so well describes as
 This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone sat in the silver sea 
is really the question underlying my Motion this evening. There are, of course, many rural industries which we cannot help to resuscitate or revive.
Most of the rural industries depend on one thing, and that is a prosperous agriculture. If we get a prosperous agriculture in the country, many of those industries will revive. On the other hand, there are industries not dependent on agriculture which still ought to be kept in every kind of way from underselling by the foreigner, industries which give much employment. As far as agriculture is concerned, I gratefully recognise the effort which the present Government have made in very difficult circumstances to give real help to that industry. I have been a Member of this House for 10 years, and can honestly say that I have never been under a Government that has really tried to help industry as the present Government is doing at the moment. It has nothing to stop it, because it is looking from a business point of view, without any Protection, Free Trade, Socialism, nationalisation or any other point of view, at the problem before it.
I do not agree with many of the things that the Government put forward, but no honest person can deny that it not only has the chance but has the will, and is making an effort to make agriculture, the most important industry in our countryside, really prosperous once again. If it succeeds—and I think that every man and woman ought to help in this object—it will be the only thing that will stop the drift of our young people to the towns from the countryside where they ought to be. It will be the only thing that will encourage investors to put capital back into our agricultural land instead of investing it in businesses, perhaps overseas and in a foreign land. I should like to say with much pleasure to my right hon. Friend, who I am glad to see here to-night, that there is only one test of all the Government legislation; whether it gets a fair price for the producer. Then it will pay; otherwise, it is not worth the trouble of doing anything. The people of England must understand that if they want a prosperous agriculture and a prosperous countryside, they must pay a fair price to the producer for the goods in the countryside, in the same way as the dweller in the countryside must pay a fair price for the goods he buys for his work.
I should like to put forward one fact about the countryside. We are luckily now able to evolve schemes for properly
planning the town and countryside of England. Nothing is more important, as you realise when you see the shocking spread of industrial towns into the countryside, than to get committees formed all over England, on a big scale and composed of the right people, to decide which is to be country and which is to be town. The Town and Country Planning Act, 1932, which will come into force on the 1st April, will I hope be used wisely and well. Under that Act there is at all events some chance of dealing with those who come from the towns and desecrate the countryside, coming down in their motors and opening gates, breaking glass bottles and leaving them about where they can cut the feet of the cattle; setting woods on fire, as sometimes they do. There will be some chance of stopping that conduct and forcing those people to behave in a proper way. Many persons talk about the countryside being abused. We welcome all people who want a quiet day in the country, but we want to feel sure that they are not abusing our hospitality or desecrating the beautiful scenery which we have spent many years in producing, and that they will behave properly, as they do in the streets of London.
Some industries could be revived without other help at once, if agriculture is made more prosperous. If we get agriculture prosperous, we shall be building farm buildings, and owners, as every agricultural owner has done in the past and will do in the future, will provide cottages for those who work on the farms. That will be, without any doubt, an alleviation of the rural housing problem. There are local brickmaking works in many parts of England—in Southern England there are thousands of them. If agriculture is prosperous, there will be a bigger demand for bricks, land drainage pipes, and tiles for cottages. You will encourage the industry and get more employment for it. It does not want other help; it is doing fairly well now, but it would be enabled to employ more men and to have a more prosperous time. Thatchers, again, are a skilled race of agricultural labourers—there is no race more skilled. They are getting scarce. There are various reasons for this. Mechanisation plays its part in the unemployment of skilled workers on the countryside. Another reason is that Dutch barns are going up with iron roofs
that require no thatch, whereas a thatcher was required before. On the other hand, if agriculture is prosperous, there will be more demand for thatching in the fields, and the demand for skilled thatchers, who are so important, will be kept up, and they will be as skilled as they have been in the past.
There is one very sad side, from a picturesque point of view, in the disappearance of one part of England—the old mills that used to grind the corn. They are either derelict or have disappeared, and there are very few left. I doubt whether under modern conditions they are worth being resuscitated, even with a prosperous agriculture. But an old workman told me that in his father's time, when the workmen wanted some more flour to bake bread, they went to the governor and asked him to send wheat over to the mills to be ground. He sent it over at once; the price was paid, and they had flour for their old ovens in the cottages—which, unfortunately, they do not have now—and it was very much to the advantage of the farmer, who got cheap offal from the grain for his stock. I was sorry that flour was not forbidden to come into this country as well as the whole wheat; I believe that such a step might have given some encouragement to the country mills, which are not only a picturesque ornament to the country and add to its beauty, but are a useful and cheap means of giving the farmer flour and offal with which to feed his stock.
Those are some of the industries that depend on successful agriculture and which will come right with the prosperity of agriculture. It is essential that some other things be kept up in the countryside, and one of these is to give the children in schools a rural bias in education. In a quiet way, in many schools in many counties, gardens are provided for these children and a competition is held at the end of the year by the squire or the farmer. Tours are arranged for the children round the farms to show them the cows being milked and other kinds of work. Education in one form or another can be given without any expense to children who are going to be the skilled agricultural workers of the future, to give them some: keenness in agriculture, so that at 15 and 16, when they would otherwise want to go off to the
town, they will desire to stick to the country where they were brought up.
No one has helped the countryside more in, education, not only among children but among workers, than the Rural Community Councils formed under the Rural Industries Bureau. They get a grant from the Development Fund of only £6,300, but I am very glad that they have something. Of this they give to the Rural Community Councils some £5,400, and very good use is being made of this money with the help of private subscriptions. The Bureau does its best to send people down to teach craftsmen, such as blacksmiths, wheelwrights and saddlers, in the villages; they are given instruction, and these little men who have that knowledge in a village can nearly always get a living and are a very useful asset to the farmer. The average county, I understand, has 100 smiths, wheelwrights and saddlers. The Bureau also says that if estate and farm repairs were carried out as in pre-War days, all these men would be busy. Harrows, drags, horse hoes, and cultivators, specially designed to suit local conditions, are still manufactured by blacksmiths, especially in the Eastern counties.
There are many other activities, especially in Scotland and elsewhere, and although I do not plead for further funds, especially at a time like this, I hope that the Government will give all the encouragement it can. The local Community Council in my own county of West Sussex has been formed for the last 10 years. Among other things, it undertook to ascertain through its constituent bodies, if the rural districts wanted public libraries. Owing to the action it took, we now have libraries in the villages. They also carried out inquiries in the local villages on what craftsmen were at work, and made great efforts to popularise many forms of industries, by giving lectures and holding exhibitions. With the help of the Women's Institutes of that county they have spread education among those who desire to have it and among those whom it may benefit. They have taught lobster-pot making, they have set up experimental plots for growing willows, and have started underwood work. But I think that their best effort in my county of Sussex—though I am not Member for Sussex, I live there—has been to start the young farmers' clubs,
which are so well known in most counties, where all young agriculturists can receive good training in the work on which they are likely to be employed in their later years.
I was told that there was very little to talk on in this Motion, but I have so much down that I must hurry on. I do not think that I can pass over this subject without paying a real tribute to the Women's Institutes, which deserve all the encouragement that they can possibly get. By working in with the educational policy of the Rural Community Councils, they have done almost more to spread education than any other body that I know. There are two interests for which I want to put in a plea with the Minister. I am afraid that it is not exactly a matter for the Minister of Agriculture. It may be more to do with the Board of Trade. There are industries independent of agriculture, which employ a good many people in one way or another and which ought to be encouraged in this country. I am referring to forestry and to the underwood industry, which in many counties are going on very hard at the present time. It is an industry which gives employment to many hands in the winter time, when work on the farm is rather slack. In the old days the agricultural labourers were employed in the forests of the neighbouring estates, but owing to the poor prices ruling for timber very little work has been done either in planting or cutting. Indeed, the forests of England are getting seriously denuded, and it is a matter which should receive most serious attention for the future.
I went as a representative of the Central Landowners' Association, who produce a great deal of this timber in this country, before the Imports Advisory Committee. We went with the timber merchants in order to support their plea for a higher duty on hard wood, which we can grow in this country in sufficient supplies. I asked a question last June as to what had been done, and it has not been answered yet. I am told that the reason for this is that the Board of Trade are bargaining with other countries over other materials. If that is the case they are doing so to the detriment of the forestry industry in this country, and it is time that they made up their minds as to whether they
are going to treat this particular industry fairly or whether they propose to use it in bargaining as against some other industry. That does not help the countryside at all.
Forestry employs a great many hands in its various ramifications. We can produce the timber in this country. We have been told that before anything can be done by the Government the industry must organise itself. I want to tell the Minister of Agriculture that the Central Landowners Association, the producers of this timber, or a large part of it, are getting on with a scheme for the reorganisation of the production and selling of timber. We have been assisted by the Forestry Commissioners, who are the largest producers of this timber in this country. We are doing our best to get a proper organisation of the timber producers, and we want to get the timber merchants in as well. When we have this organisation and go again with our application to the Imports Advisory Committee we do expect to get better treatment than we had before. We do not expect to be used as a pawn in bargaining with some other industry. If something is done in this direction it will make a great deal of difference in the number of men employed. Up to this year it employed all the spare hands in many villages, but for the first time there is no demand this year for underwood at all, entirely owing to foreign competition. It is found that the people who use this kind of wood are able to buy their supplies from outside this country at so cheap a price that the producers in this country cannot compete with it. This is a rural industry which should get fair play; it should not be treated as a pawn.
Another industry which the Rural Community Council has done much to help and assist is the osier growing industry. Why has that gone out? Osiers make baskets. In their report they say:
 The recovery of the underwood industry depends on the recovery of general trade. Bosoms are used largely by docks and wharves and also by the steel trade, though the demand for this has completely ceased for the present.
There are figures to show that this industry is hard hit by unfair foreign competition. The osier growing and basket making industries provide work for a considerable number of men, including many blind persons. The home trade has shown
a marked downward tendency in recent years. In 1926 it was down by 5.49 per cent. as compared with 1925, in 1927 by 7.87 per cent. as compared with 1925; in 1928 by 27.41 per cent. as compared with 1925; in 1929 by 12.49 per cent. as compared with 1925; in 1930 by 17.69 per cent. as compared with 1925, and the last census figures gave 7,000 basket makers as employed in the industry as compared with 4,500 at present. The number of employers in the industry is about 900. Osier growing in our rural districts gives employment to at least two men per acre, and if my suggestion is carried out employment could be given to agricultural workers in this way and also for part of the year in the forests. For some years the growing of osiers has been diminishing and unemployment has increased by 60 per cent. and 70 per cent. I am only talking of small things but these small things make all the difference in the life of the country. They cannot cost very much even if a little more protection is given them.
I hope the Debate, academic as it be, will do something to encourage sturdy British village folk all over rural England to hold fast to their old traditions of faith and character. It will be a gesture of good will and remind them that even in these times of national crisis, when great industrial problems present themselves for consideration, that their interests are not overlooked in this great assembly of the House of Commons.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. LENNOX-BOYD: I beg to second the Motion.
The House has this afternoon been considering urgent matters of great international importance, and it may be something of an anti-climax when we ask it to consider a matter of this kind, but I venture to suggest that there may come a time when the various concerns with which the House has interested itself this afternoon, deflation, reflation, inflation, sterling, prices and tariffs, and all matters of that kind, may well be merely a part of history, and that any legislative assembly which may survive may still be called upon to decide questions vitally affecting rural and agricultural life. I do not go so far as to say that in the future they will still be flint knapping in Norfolk, as they have been doing from
neolithic times, or that they will in Barnstaple be making pottery as they have made it for the last 1,500 years, but I think it highly improbable that the inventive genius of man will ever discover a more effective way of sustaining life than by the cultivation of the fields, and as long as that remains true, any question which vitally concerns agriculture must demand the attention of any Parliament in the world.
My hon. and gallant Friend who has proposed the Motion referred to the previous Motion which he himself moved in 1927, and perhaps the House will remember that that Motion was rather rudely interrupted by a count. There are all the indications that some such situation may arise to-night, but I have every intention of being very brief, and especially because the Minister of Agriculture has been courteous enough to be present and proposes to speak in the course of the Debate. When my hon. and gallant Friend proposed his previous Motion he was speaking at a time when during the 16 years previous no fewer than 126,000 agricultural workers had left the countryside for the towns. Since he made that speech a further 17,000 agricultural workers have left rural Britain and gone into the towns, and have gone either upon the dole or superseded other industrial workers, who have themselves gone upon the dole. In the same period in almost every quarter of rural Britain the rural workshops which were flourishing 18 and 20 years ago have been closing down. In a period of five years in Norfolk and in Suffolk nearly 1,000 rural workshops have closed down and over 1,500 men have lost their employment.
When my hon. and gallant Friend proposed his Motion in 1927 it was perfectly true that more people were employed on the land than are employed to-day, but there was a very definite difference between the position which ruled when he made his last speech and the position which rules to-day. To-day agricultural Britain knows with gratitude and certainty that the Government have decided on an agricultural policy and have put it in the hands of a Minister who commands the respect and loyalty of the whole agricultural community. The situation is indeed different to-day. I want briefly to try and explain what I understand is
meant by rural industries. I am afraid that there is grave danger that some people may go away with the idea that the Mover and Seconder of this Motion are concerned with some of those trades like raffia working, and arts and crafts which can scarcely form suitable subjects for the deliberation of Parliament. I can assure the House that we have no intention of asking for a subsidy to encourage raffia working, nor do we want a subsidy to bring about what the Prime Minister described as an artistic Utopia, a Medici print in every cottage. We want to draw attention to real rural industries which are ancillary to agriculture, and which have been going through times even graver than the great industry of agriculture to which they themselves cater.
I refer primarily to the rural building trade, the building by small rural craftsmen of houses which are in every way suitable for the district in which they are placed. Secondly, to the old rural past-times, hedging, ditching, thatching, shoeing and blacksmith work, all of which it is vital to retain if we want to keep in our midst live craftsmen living upon the land. It should not be necessary in times of agricultural enlightenment to stress the advantages of rural trades. They are vital to agriculture, and if you once allow people who can perform them successfully to die out, and no successors to be reared, you will find at a time of agricultural expansion that you lack the people to whom you must turn. To-day anyone who examines the figures will find that we have few young men, in many districts no young men who are taking up such a vital rural trade as thatching. You can survey counties from end to end and count on the fingers of one hand the young men who are being trained to carry on this vital trade. That is not the only advantage, because rural trades have provided in the past for nearly every agricultural householder a highly valuable source of alternative income.
I represent an agricultural district, where, if the same amount of work in one trade was being given to-day as 20 years ago, no less than £12,000 would be paid out every year in wages, in a district no larger than 20 square miles. It is rather a tragic thing that we should, in response to the gospel of cheapness, have allowed
this industry—the peeling of onions for pickling—to be superseded by cheaper onions imported from Holland and other countries. Also in the district I represent there were, until a few years ago, no fewer than 7,000 people who brought home every week to their homes a considerable sum of money through the making of Bedford lace. To-day what is a really historic and important English trade is carried on by people who can be numbered in mere hundreds.
It has been suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend that these rural industries would keep enterprising men on the land. I would like to refer to what I consider almost the most valuable thing that such men could do, and that is to produce beautiful and artistic things and gradually to raise the whole public taste. Everyone knows that at the moment mass production is killing enterprise and the power to create the simple and beautiful things that our fathers turned out. If we are ever to overcome the undoubted degrading of the public taste which mass production has brought about, it will be largely because of the demand for the products of the village skilled craftsman, who in time will make his wares popular and thereby affect mass production itself.
It is all very well to catalogue a series of grievances and not to suggest one or two practical steps which the Government could take. Obviously a first step, a step which we in this House can ask of our Government—the Government is responding—is to pursue with vigour a live agricultural policy. It is true that a number of our rural trades, not all and not even all the vital ones, will revive with a general revival in agriculture. If we look at the various! important wood trades, rakes, hurdle making and trades of that kind, we find that their depression has coincided very largely with the general agricultural depression. We shall find it very difficult when the better times come, the times for which the Minister is working with such vigour and such chance of success, to find people who will be trained enough to carry on these trades, unless something is done now.
Another thing which we can suggest to the Government is that in their industrial policy they should remember that in a good many rural districts of England the recovery of rural trade will come
about through industrial recovery. It is impossible to over-emphasise the collapse in agricultural rural life which has been occasioned by the decline in the purchasing power of the great towns. If only we can revive that purchasing power we will find an enormous fillip given to our rural trades. There are a whole variety of small ways in which a revival in industrial life would bring about a revival in rural industries as well. If, for example, the iron and steel trade and the shipbuilding trade revived there would be an immediate response in the small rural trades which makes heather besoms on the northern moors. If the textile trade were to revive the bobbin mills of Yorkshire and the Lake District would foe called upon to satisfy some of the new demands.
A third way in which the Government could help would be to give rural trades that protection against foreign imports which many of them can legitimately ask. There was for many generations a very flourishing rush-plaiting trade carried on in this country. It was carried on for centuries. It had been entirely killed by the cheap imports of Belgian plait. When the War came there were Belgian refugees in England, and a man in the district who had bought his plait from Belgium naturally thought that he might get some of the Belgian plaiters to work here by taking them to Islip, and that so he would be able to purchase cheap plait such as he had bought previously from abroad. But he was met with the reply that not a single man among the refugees could carry on this trade, because it had been invariably performed by convict and reformatory labour in Belgium. So in response to the gospel of cheapness we had allowed a very old and romantic and attractive English rural craft to be faced with extinction.
The Government have faced up to the problem in one vital trade to which my hon. and gallant Friend referred. That is the basket trade. It is not generally recognised that Covent Garden Market requires every year 2,000,000 sieves and half-sieves. It is absurd that market gardeners in agricultural districts which produce the goods should foe forced to buy their baskets from foreign countries. There was a duty put on foreign baskets in 1932, and the immediate result of that duty was a reduction by one-half of the imports of foreign baskets. I can speak
from personal experience and I am sure that though a certain part of that figure is met by a falling off in demand, the greater part is met by increased production among the basket-makers of England.
My hon. and gallant Friend referred to rural bias in education, and I would make a brief comment on that subject. In 1926 the Board of Education issued a pamphlet in which they explained why it was that the secondary education of England was rather taking the form of industrial as opposed to rural education. They said that as secondary education was voluntary it was inevitable that the form of education provided should conform to what the public wanted. They said that the average parent believed that if a child who had had a secondary education went into any occupation other than commerce or clerical work, that child's secondary education was inevitably wasted. I hope that the Government, through the Board of Education, and everyone who has influence, through the normal channels, will do all that is possible to impress upon the people the fact that probably many rural trades to-day are a far better climax to a, secondary education than industrial or commercial life. It would be a real service to dispel the illusion that the only man whose education has justified itself is the person who can wear a black coat— and then find, when he looks for work, that there is no job at hand. It is a widespread belief.
Take, for example, the primitive and ancient trade of charcoal burning. There is very little prospect of an increased demand for charcoal, unless the League of Nations embroils us in war with Japan and more gunpowder is required. But our charcoal burners are living in huts which are almost exactly replicas of the hut-circle habitations of our primitive ancestors. But a Government inspector comes round and finds that, though these men have worked for generations in those huts and have taken no harm from the woods, the huts do not conform to some regulation of the Ministry of Health, or that a small boy in the hut is ignorant of some algebraic problem, and the whole force of Parliament is brought to bear, an Act is prepared, the Government Whips are probably put on, a bright new red brick villa is built in the woods, an
asphalte path is laid from the villa to the school, and there the child learns of the day when William the Conqueror came to the Throne, but he will be taught to despise a trade which was old at the time of the Conquest. His feat will be planted very firmly on the ladder which will eventually land him outside an Employment Exchange in some nearby town. If we are to put an end to that, we must do our best to revive the old honourable and useful system of apprenticeship. You will never revive rural crafts and give the people a proper sense of what true education is, unless you revive the system of technical apprenticeship which built up the prosperity of Britain and provided, in nearly every case, that career open to talent which it must be the aim of elementary education to give.
No one who speaks on the subject of rural industries ought to leave altogether out of account the progressive and tragic degradation of the face of Britain which has been taking place for the last few generations. Any Government which determines to tackle firmly the problem of rural industries must assume almost autocratic powers. If we had a dictatorship of the fine arts in Britain, as we could quite properly have, a dictatorship which this Government with its gigantic majority could assume, it would be possible, immediately, to insist that no local authority should pass for building the plan of any cottage or house which did not conform as best it could, to the prevailing architecture of the district. It would be possible to insist on the use of local stone and local slates and the employment of local craftsmen and it would be possible, if need be, to waive some of the exaggerated and unnecessary regulations which exist at present.
There was a case a little time ago in which a rural district council of great good sense, required some gutter stays for its houses. Somebody suggested that a local craftsman might produce them almost as cheaply as and certainly better than a firm of manufacturers. They used the locally-made article with the result that the houses which they have built are improved architecturally and from every other point of view. The people who live in cottages of that kind and who go from those cottages to earn their daily bread in that revived agriculture which my right
hon. Friend the Minister is doing his best to bring about, will be better citizens and happier men than if they had been put into some Addison monstrosity in some new street. It was well said by an Irishman only a few days ago, speaking of a friend: "He was born a countryman, as I was, but the streets closed in on him— at the end—God pity him." We have an opportunity, by encouraging these rural trades, of keeping on the soil in happy and profitable content a generation of men who, if we do nothing, will inevitably gravitate to the towns. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister who has shown great courtesy in being here and who is, I understand, to speak in this Debate, will give some encouragement to those who believe that a rural bias in education is almost the outstanding educational need of the day.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. LLEWELLYN-JONES: I should like to congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Brown) upon introducing this Motion. My only regret is that more hon. Members were not in the House to hear the very lucid way in which he presented it. I am disposed to think that that, to a certain extent, may be an indication of the attitude which is too often taken by those who live in towns or industrial areas towards the requirements of the country districts. But if the rural population of this country continues to drop and drop as, it has been doing nothing but disaster lies ahead of this country and it is well that Parliament should address itself to what is one of the most important and urgent problems connected with our national life.
This Motion is complementary to the Bill which received a Second Reading a fortnight ago dealing with home and Empire settlement. In the Debate on that Bill a good deal of attention was paid to the problem of home settlement and there can be no doubt that there is increasing anxiety in various circles as to the situation in our rural areas to-day. The problem to-day is not merely one of stopping the drift from country to town but also one of endeavouring to bring back to the country as many as possible of those who have gravitated during the last generation to the towns. This
problem is closely associated with the problem of unemployment. I believe that, with a definite, progressive, forward policy in connection with the rural areas, much might be done to assist in dealing with unemployment.
The depopulation of the rural areas is not merely a quantitative problem. It is a qualitative problem also. Anyone who has been brought up in a rural area or a country village and whose recollection goes back 30, 40 or 50 years, must realise the great change that has taken place in that time. When I first read this Motion a few days ago I was at home. I took one of my usual walks in the country and went into the parish where I lived in my boyhood. I began to make comparisons between the situation in that parish 50 years ago and the situation to-day and I could not help being struck by the great and serious difference in the character of the inhabitants. There was a big drop in the population but, apart from that, I found that the two or three blacksmiths' shops which were there 20 years ago had been closed; there was no saddler and the two flour mills had long since been closed and were in a dilapidated state and very unlikely ever to be set going again. These changes meant that other occupations had also ceased to be practised in that district. The wheelwrights, for instance, had gone. If one were to make a survey of a number of parishes and rural areas one would find the same story repeated. Not only has the population gone down but the local crafts have died out, and all the work required in these districts has to be carried out at neighbouring towns.
The remedy is not merely to bring men back to the land, not merely to encourage men to remain in the country, but to see, as far as possible, that there is no further drop in rural industries and that something is done to restore those industries which are capable of being restored. There are many, of course, that cannot be restored, such as the milling industry of the country, but there are certain industries which have migrated into the towns for whose return to the rural areas we might hope, and something has been done of recent years in this direction. The hon. and gallant Member who introduced this Motion referred to what has been done by the Rural Industries Bureau, in co-operation with the Rural
Community Council, in organising craftsmen in various parts of the country. Reference has also been made to the activities of the Women's Institutes which are scattered throughout the country. It may be of interest to hon. Members to know that the first women's village institute was started in Anglesey, in North Wales, in a small village with a very long name—probably, if it were printed in full, the longest name on the map of England and Wales. [HON. MEMBERS: "Say it!"] I am afraid it would be eleven o'clock before I had finished it.
I propose now to refer to what has been done in Wales in connection with one industry, because I believe it is some indication as to what might be done in other parts of the country. I refer to the woollen industry. There was a time when the woollen industry was one of the great industries of Wales. Long before any coal mines were opened in our country, our small woollen factories not only supplied their own localities, but flannel and cloth were sent across the border to markets in border towns, from North Wales to Oswestry and Shrewsbury, and from South Wales to Hereford and other border towns; and a great quantity of it was conveyed from these towns to all parts of England. Unfortunately, that industry gradually declined, but at one time there must have been hundreds of small woollen factories in all parts of Wales. The water power in the rivers and the valleys of Wales was found to be of immense value in connection with this industry. Recently, there has been a turn of the tide, and the woollen industry in Wales, although it is suffering at the moment owing to the depression in the mining districts, has some prospect of revival, I believe.
Reference has already been made by both speakers who have preceded me on this subject to the importance of educational work. It may be interesting to know that a few years ago the Welsh University took up this matter. A certain fund was placed at the disposal of the university in connection with Welsh industries, and a committee, of which I had the honour to be a member, decided that it might very usefully be expended in making a survey of the woollen industry, to see what could be
done in order to develop it in various parts of Wales; and an advising and organising officer was appointed. In the first instance, a very interesting report was published on a survey of the Welsh textile industry. The report gave an account of the mills and factories in various parts of Wales, and made certain suggestions in connection with organisation in the future. As a result, the Welsh Textiles Association was founded, and this association has not only assisted in stimulating the industry, but has done one important thing which was absolutely necessary in connection with it, namely, improving the design of the cloths woven at the different small factories in Wales. In probably the same report to which the hon. and gallant Member referred, the report of the Rural Industries Bureau, reference is made to this matter, and I think perhaps a few sentences from this report will give the House a better idea as to what has been done in Wales in this connection than can any words of mine:
 The Bureau works direct with the Welsh textile industry …. Welsh industry consists of 100 rural mills hitherto producing flannel, blankets, and coarse cloth. With Bureau help Textiles Association has been formed, and new modern fabrics designed by the Bureau and gradually being introduced have been exhibited, for the first time, at the British Industries Fair, where export orders were received from all over Europe. Assistance with design will continue and two looms be permanently devoted to design experiment. The technical advice is supplied by a Welsh-speaking expert working permanently in Wales. The industry uses local wool, employs 1,000 men, and is capable of employing 2,000. After success at Fair, interest in design and new methods is spreading to more factories in Wales.
When the House realises that there are something like 140 factories, the great majority of them in the three counties of South and West Wales-Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire—it will be seen what can be done by organisation of this character. This is one of the rural industries which I believe has largely been saved by the assistance, given, in the first instance, by the Welsh University, and subsequently by the Welsh Textiles Association, which was established in conjunction with the Rural Industries Bureau. This is not the only industry to which attention has been devoted of recent years in Wales. In a very interesting report, published in the year 1927 and
compiled by Miss Anna M. Jones, reference is made to a large number of other small industries, such as pottery and basket-making, and it is an indication that a good deal can be done if, in various localities, there is some kind of organisation, and a possibility of receiving advice, and in some cases, of course, of getting certain financial assistance to start an industry.
The question to which the House naturally desires to address itself is what can be done to stimulate this movement. No one disputes the importance of developing rural life in its various aspects, and the Minister of Agriculture has certainly a great opportunity. I like to regard the Minister of Agriculture as the Minister of Rural Industries dealing with all aspects of rural life. I will suggest in this connection that, so far as Wales is concerned, the Welsh Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, who is stationed in Wales and has a staff at his disposal, might work in conjunction with the local authorities and the education authorities to deal with all aspects of rural life. I am very glad that such emphasis was made upon the importance of giving a rural bias to education.
I speak with a good deal of knowledge of the educational movements in Wales when I say that I am afraid that our elementary schools have been regarded too largely as schools to train children to go to the secondary schools. Our secondary schools again—the great majority of them, at any rate—have simply gone largely upon the old idea of giving either a good literary education or an education in science subjects. The practical side of education has been neglected to a very great extent, particularly in the rural areas. What is the result? A very large number of the children who pass through rural schools think that their only possibility of a decent future is in the towns or in industrial districts. If something can be done in the elementary schools to give a more practical side to education, it would certainly mean that more children would be prepared to remain in the country. A child should not be brought up with the idea that it is only by following what many people regard as more respectable occupations that he can find a future after he leaves school.
I trust that the Government will not merely accept this Motion to-night, but will follow it with action. I cannot imagine that there will be any attempt from any part of the House to oppose it. The danger is that once a private Member's Bill has had its Second Reading and is sent upstairs to Committee to be scanned, and once a private Member's Motion is passed, it goes into the pigeonhole of some Department or other and is forgotten until it crops up again three or four years afterwards. This is one aspect of many of the problems which are baffling us in this country, and I trust that the Minister of Agriculture and the Government will, after the House adopts this Motion, as I am certain it will, will see that something is done at no distant date in order to implement what I believe to be the views of the great majority, if not of the whole House.

8.50 p.m.

Mr. J. P. L. THOMAS: As I represent a constituency whose welfare is entirely bound up with the prosperity of its agricultural population, I should like to add my congratulations to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Brown) for bringing this Motion before the House, and to congratulate the hon. Member for Mid-Bedford (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) for the very able and charming way in which he did his share by seconding the Motion. I welcome the Motion on my own behalf, for to those who represent agricultural constituencies one of the most pleasant features of our work lies in the attraction and the interest which we find in village life. Any action or trouble that we may take now cannot be too great a burden if thereby we can do anything to preserve the happiness and contentment of the people in our villages. For some time past we have watched the drift of our rural population from the countryside to the town. Year after year we have watched them with a feeling of despair because we felt that our hands are being tied behind our backs by a futile and worn out system of Free Trade. Until this Government came into office we had been powerless to help them, and we had to stand by while our rural industries had to stand up by their own unaided efforts against the competition of the foreigner.
That day is now passed, and it is because the Government have put into our hands the weapon of Protection, and because the Minister of Agriculture with great courage has launched us on a venture of building up once more the greatest of our British industries, that we support this Motion with more optimism than we possibly could when last the hon. and gallant Member introduced it in the House. The decline in the prosperity of agriculture has seen the decline also in our rural industries. In this country it is the concentration on manufacture in urban localities which contributes so largely to the displacement of the population of our rural areas. Unlike other countries, we have taken no steps until a short time ago to preserve the balance between our towns and the population of our countryside. It has not been so in other countries. Germany, for instance, as far back as 1870 after the ending of the Franco-Prussian War, was engaged in reconstructing her life as a national unit. She aimed at balancing the claims of the country and of the towns. She adopted that policy 60 years ago, and we have waited until the present day before we ourselves have attempted to adopt it. That it was a right policy is beyond doubt, because in the years of the Great War she reaped her reward. Her resistance to the blockade was one of the greatest wonders of the War.
This example has not altogether been lost on us, although we could have made greater use of the methods which they used, for successive Governments since 1921 have given practical financial help to the Rural Industries Bureau Development Fund. This has worked most successfully in at least 18 of our counties, through either the rural community councils, the rural industries bureau and other bodies, especially the women's institute. I, too, would like to seize this opportunity of paying a very fleeting tribute to the women's institutes, who, with their most admirable instruction work, do so much to bring content into our village life.
As the county which I represent is one of the 18 which are receiving this help. I hope I shall not bore the House if for one moment I give an example of a rural industry in Herefordshire. The hon. Member for Flint (Mr. Llewellyn-Jones)
told us how the people of his county used to market their goods in the markets of Herefordshire. We have taken a leaf from the book of the hon. Member for Flint. We have set about and are making great strides in the industry of woven tweeds, but we do not return the compliment of using Flintshire as our market. We seem to have gone farther afield, for to-day not only are Herefordshire tweeds being sold in all parts of the British Isles, but they go to South America, South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Ceylon and Denmark. Now, with a mixture of linen and wool, we are preparing to produce light-weight tweeds suitable for use in tropical countries. The development of this new industry is already having a tremendous effect on the building of new looms, and giving great work to village carpenters in my constituency.
The hon. and gallant Member for Newbury spoke to us of the possibilities of basket-making were it given sufficient Protection against the foreigner. We, too, in Herefordshire make baskets. He pleaded for an increase in the tariff against foreign goods. I understand that certain of the basket-makers are asking for what I should call a prohibitive tariff against foreign imports. I assure the House that I should be the last person to grudge tariff Protection to any agricultural industry, but there is a danger on this particular question. The customers of our basket-makers are the users of what we call containers, and if regular supplies at reasonable prices are too difficult to obtain there is a possibility that they will give up the use of baskets and take once more to non-returnable boxes and to crates. Although I hope very much that the 20 per cent. tariff which I understand is at present upon the products of that industry may be increased, it is just as well that it should not be increased to a prohibitive level too suddenly.
I certainly have no wish to pose as a person with any particular knowledge of the subject of this Motion, but, if I might with very great respect make one suggestion to the Minister, it would be to extend to these rural districts the benefits of a marketing organisation. We have all seen the very attractive products of our rural craftsmen at exhibitions, and surely we can agree that there must be a very large potential demand for the
products of our village blacksmiths, our wheelwrights, our potters, and our textile workers. The trouble at the moment seems to be that the large stores and distributors are unable to purchase these articles wholesale in sufficient quantities, and to be certain at the same time that they will be up to sample. Would it not be possible for rural producers to be registered at some central organisation, possibly the Rural Industries Bureau, which would be in a position to accept orders on a large scale knowing that it would be possible to meet the demands in a satisfactory manner? The cost of a marketing organisation would have to be considered, but if we follow the examples which have been presented to us during the last few months, and especially on Monday, surely that cost might be defrayed by producers in the form of a levy. I am quite convinced that this is a step which will have to be taken if these rural industries are to continue to prosper and to expand.
I realise that this Motion may seem possibly, a question of secondary importance to the Minister of Agriculture, who is for the moment facing such tremendous problems in his Department—tremendous problems in all the branches of agriculture—live-stock, arable and dairy farming—with such sympathy and with such courage. I say of my own knowledge, and I am speaking for one of the greatest live stock areas, which has been terribly hard hit through the collapse of prices in the meat market during last year, that in that area he has won from the farmers and agricultural workers the greatest admiration and the greatest confidence. That is the case to such an extent that I am sure he will be victorious, with their help and co-operation, in rebuilding our great industry and recreating a rural civilisation. But if that picture is to be complete it must contain within its framework the prosperity also of the rural industries referred to in this Motion, and I feel sure that he will look upon the suggestions which have been made in previous speeches with the greatest sympathy. I would also ask him, with great respect, whether he does not think the time has come when a very serious inquiry might be held into the following three points: first, to see what other rural industries existing already in foreign countries might be
started here in Great Britain; second, to see how best to develop the rural industries already in existence here; and thirdly, and to my mind most important of all, to consider the need of a sales organisation. I support this Motion because I realise, as does every other right hon. and hon. Member of this House, that the eventual triumph and the eventual strength of the agricultural population, will rest upon the initiative and the native craftsmanship of every individual agricultural worker.

9.3 p.m.

Commander COCHRANE: I wish to give whole-hearted support to this Motion, and I start by saying that because I would like to give my very brief remarks a rather different direction from that which has been followed by any of the other speakers up to the present; and for this reason. I think my hon. and gallant Friend who introduced this Motion was, if he will forgive me for saying so, speaking about to-morrow in the terms of yesterday. Even in the rural districts things will not be in the future as they were in the past. I regret exceedingly that that should be so, but it appears to me that conditions are changing so much in this country and throughout the world that we cannot expect to get back to those conditions, which I am sure we should all like to see, where the rural industries which he indicated were the ones which could be successfully carried on in our country districts. I think one of the greatest mistakes which we have made in this country in the past has been to divorce the great industry of agriculture from our other producing industries.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. J. P. C. Thomas) mentioned just now what had been done in Germany, saying that there they had endeavoured for the last 50 years to weld together, as I understood him, the agricultural industry and other productive industries. I believe that the Germans describe that process as making their people "crisis-resistant," that is to say, the inhabitants are not entirely dependent upon either one or the other industry. I do not think that there was ever a time in this country when we had more need to apply the same principles. To-day, as a result of the displacement of men, not entirely but largely because
of the so-called rationalisation of industry, that is, by the perfection of machinery, men are becoming unemployed, and, at the same time, voluntary associations all over the country are trying to find small plots of land so that those men may do something to keep themselves until they can get back into employment in their own industry.
We cannot regard that as a satisfactory state of affairs. On the one hand, skilled men are being turned off because of the excessive use of machinery, and on the other hand, every effort is being made by those voluntary associations to find the unemployed men some occupation at which they will not produce anything useful. The voluntary associations are at once in difficulties as soon as they produce anything for which they must find a market. There must be some middle course which would avoid those two extremes. I think that we must accept the possibility that the industries of this country, and by that I mean the great agricultural industry and the other productive industries, must be more closely linked together, if we are to have a prosperous country in the future. The Government are taking steps and powers which will make it possible for them to bring about this great change in the country. The question I would submit is, would it be right for them not to do so? We have only a limited amount of land, and we must face the question as to whether that land is to be used for the purposes of producing food-crops by the ruthless use of machinery and so on, or whether we are going to employ that limited amount of land in order to sustain as many people as possible? I submit that the only rational way in which we can make use of the land of the country is by giving as many people as possible some alternative source of income.
I come back for a moment to the people I mentioned just now who have been thrown out of ordinary productive industry. Would it not be a much happier state of affairs, and should we not see the people of our country much more crisis-resistant if each of those unemployed men had a comparatively small plot of land which they could use for part-time employment, and from which they would gain a certain amount of produce? My hon. and gallant Friend the
Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Clifton Brown) mentioned with approval —and I entirely agree—what has been done by the Forestry Commission. He mentioned also the Central Landowners' Association. Men are employed part-time at forestry and part-time upon smallholdings. I have never understood why the production of trees should be thought the only productive industry which could be usefully linked with agriculture. I believe that much can be done in the way of adding other productive industries to agriculture.
I am encouraged in that view by the fact that, in spite of all the talk that there has been in recent years—you do not hear so much about it now—of the rationalisation of industry, there were, in 1930, 97,000 factories in this country each employing fewer than 25 men. There were another 11,500 employing between 26 and 50 men each. All those factories might have been in rural districts; I do not say that they all were, but it would be possible that they should be in rural districts. There is nothing in a process which can be carried on in a factory employing fewer than 25 men which prevents it from being carried on in a rural district. The total number of people employed in the smallest class of factories was very nearly 650,000 in the depressed year 1930. I believe that we must look to a development of that sort in the future, and it is for that reason that I ventured at the outset of my speech to say that I should feel bound to suggest to the House a rather different argument than that which had already been put forward.
We are embarked on this course. I do not say that it is our fault. World conditions are such to-day that the Government having taken powers, with the full assent of the country, to plan conditions in the rural districts for the future, if they face that problem as they faced the great difficulties with which our other producing industries are faced—and, after all, they are inter-linked problems —they will find it more and more necessary to link agriculture and other productive industries together. By doing so, I believe that we shall witness a revival of rural industry, but I do not think that those industries will be on quite the same lines as those which have been the standby of our country districts in the past.

9.12 p.m.

Mr. CROSSLEY: It is with some trepidation that I take part in this discussion, partly because in my constituency there are but a few fields, and on them only a few black sheep, and partly because I want to raise a question on those craft industries which the Seconder of the Motion, in a most admirable speech —I am sorry that the hon. Member is not in his place—deprecated as not worthy of the attention of Parliament. I wanted to make some rather imaginative remarks upon that matter, because we have to-day on the Front Bench a Minister who, we hope, is the most imaginative Minister. There is a good deal of difference between imagination and fantasy. Imagination leads to truth; fantasy leads to deception.
It was once my good fortune to go into the Law Courts when a breach of promise case was on. The learned judge was just beginning to sum up, and he began by going into the complete history of engagement rings since they first became desired by, and satisfactory to, the vanity and the avarice of young ladies. This question of craft industries is one which cannot be studied without first looking into history, noting those periods when craft industries flourished and seeing if those conditions are compatible with conditions in this country at the present time. Those industries certainly flourished in monastic days, when the craft guilds in every rural town in the country looked after the interests of the industries themselves and insisted upon the system of apprenticeship.
Now, however, those craft guilds have fallen into disrepute; they have sunk away into the dim ages; and even their town confreres, the City companies, have also become merely centres of conviviality and erudition. The goldsmiths, who, again, in the country, used to encourage craft industries, are also gone. These were succeeded by the period of the parson and the squire, when the parson and the squire were mostly engaged in disporting themselves either over a country or under a table, or came up here to Westminster as rather scaly-skinned die-hards and opposed every bit of progressive legislation that was put forward by their opposition, the Whig aristocracy. The Whig aristocracy, quite clearly, performed a most admirable service to the country. They did encourage some craft
industries. But, at the same time, they mostly gave their attention to more refined and cultured people abroad. They went on the Grand Tour, and brought back tastes in Venetian pictures. Then we had the industrial revolution, and our craft industries were really endowed with very small strength to meet the temptation to flock into the towns.
I want to go into another little reminiscence. When I was at Oxford, the wise and benevolent president of my college decided that it would be a good thing if I spent one term in the country. I chose, as the place to go to, a little village, and lived there with a reverend gentleman who had a house which was entirely built in the style of the village —built entirely by local craftsmen. It was fitted up in every part with beautiful old furniture; the candlesticks were of wrought iron, made in the country; the tables, perhaps, were made in the old monastic days; the pottery was made in the country. Everything was beautiful, and everything was in its way significant. The point that I want to make is that every one of those articles was actually made by people, not as luxury articles, but intended for everyday use.
To-day our new houses are furnished entirely with machine-made goods, and they are often built to the complete desecration of the country side. In the Vale of Conway, for instance, a new village has been built right along the hillside, and great interest has been taken in it by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). It is a complete blot, a straggling blot, on the face of one of the most beautiful valleys in England. I do not know whether this is not the appropriate time, even with all the appalling problems with which we find ourselves confronted, for the right hon. Gentleman, who, as we hope, has the imaginative mind, to turn to this piece of really constructive legislation, to fortify himself with powers to stop the building of country houses with bricks which are incongruous in. the district in which they are used. To restore the balance between town and country, something must be done to add dignity to our-modern countryside.
Something in that direction is being done to-day. There is a church which Gilbert Spencer is decorating at Cook-ham; there is the glass which is being
made at Broadway; there is the monastery which is being built at Buckfast, in Devonshire, by the monks. All of these are definite undertakings which will have the effect dignifying the countryside. Is it not possible to relate activities of that kind to the problem of to-day in our towns? Is it not possible to start settlements in the country of small groups of people who, under the guidance of competent craftsmen and competent artists, will undertake to revive those industries? I know that there are plenty of competent craftsmen; I come across them every day in the district in London where I live—craftsmen who would be only too glad if the chance to go and guide a community in the country towards developing a craft industry.
There are three questions that have to be asked: Where do you get your men? Where do you get your money? And, most important of all: Where do you get your markets? I suggest that you could get your men from the occupational centres which are springing up in the towns. I believe that you could get your money if the right hon. Gentleman would make a statement—a positive, emphatic statement—that he believed that there would be a market for those goods. It depends, of course, upon the answer to the question: Would there be a market for those goods? I do not know what is the use of a great deal of our education if it is not going to lead to appreciation of the fact that what is made by hand is, generally speaking, more significant than what is made by machine.
We live in a time when capitalism is floundering in the morass that it has created, and the only alternative given is a Socialism which has absolutely no ideals for an individual, or else something Motional in between the two. The study of history satisfies me that, when you have a period in which you do not make use of your capacity to create beautiful things, to dignify both town and country with what is beautiful, then you have a period of national decay. Where there is no vision, the people perish. As was said by the hon. and learned Member for Central Nottingham (Mr. O'Connor) the other day, it is our duty to build up a new capitalism that will give hope for
every person with a brain—a brain to appreciate, a brain- to use, a brain to construct. I suggest that this is not a wrong time at which to ensure that that capitalism shall partly be a capitalism of the countryside.

9.24 p.m.

Sir ALAN McLEAN: Like other Members of the House, I desire to congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Brown) on his fortune in the Ballot, and to thank him for the use that he has made of it. This Motion asks the House to record its opinion that it is vital to the country to maintain a thriving and contented village life, together with a prosperous agriculture; and, of course, if we could restore prosperity to agriculture, there is not the slightest doubt that it would go a very long way indeed, if not the whole way, to getting a thriving and contented village life. My hon. and gallant Friend has been fortunate in that this Motion comes before the House at a time when we may be said to be in the middle of a Second Reading Debate on probably the most important agricultural Measure that has been before the House, at any rate since the War. The Corn Production Act did for the time restore a great deal of prosperity to agriculture, but we hope that the Measure which will get its Second Reading next Monday will have a far more permanent and beneficial effect.
In this House we frequently talk about the depression in agriculture but, partly no doubt from the fact that the agricultural labourer does not come within the unemployment insurance scheme, we have difficulty in comparing the depression in agriculture and among agricultural labourers with the depression in other parts of the country. I believe that, in a purely agricultural county, such as Norfolk, our position is comparable to the position in South Wales or the North-East of England. In Norfolk we share the unenviable distinction with the county of Durham of being the most highly-rated counties in the country. In a county where you have industries other than agriculture, the men and women in those industries are maintained to a great extent when they fall out of employment, first, by the benefit they get under the Unemployment Insurance Act and, secondly, by transitional payment. To
that the residents in other counties contribute through the taxes, and the residents of Norfolk help to contribute to that benefit in every other county in the Kingdom. Yet in Norfolk, owing to the fact that we have got no unemployment insurance in agriculture, we have to maintain our own unemployed agricultural labourers. This additional burden is one of the reasons why the smaller industries, the shopkeeper and others, in a county like Norfolk are feeling the pinch in the way they are now.
If we are to get, in the words of the Motion, "a thriving and contented village life," we must get employment for our agricultural labourers at a time when work on the land is normally at a low ebb. Nothing can be more depressing to a man who is reaching the end of his job than to feel that there is not another job waiting for him. If we can get him to realise that the moment he finishes a particular job there is another waiting for him, it will do a great deal to restore contentment to that man. In East Anglia we have, in our sugar-beet industry, an industry which does give employment to a great many agricultural labourers at a time when they would normally be thrown out of employment on the land. The present system of help for the sugar-beet industry in this country comes to an end next year, and I hope that, in considering the future of that industry, my right hon. Friend will press on his colleagues the importance of this industry from the point of view of giving employment to people in the countryside at a time when normally they cannot get very much work.
There is another industry in the countryside which also gives work to our agricultural labourers in the winter time, the malting industry. This is not the time to go into the vexed question of the taxation of beer, but in our country maltings we have an industry that does give a great deal of employment throughout the winter season. Those country maltsters have a permanent staff all the year round, but they take on a good many men in the winter season. Owing to the depressed condition of the industry at the present time, many of these country malthouses are closed down altogether and others are employing far fewer men and for a shorter time than in the past. One of the malting houses of my constituency is employing something like a
third of what it has been accustomed to employ. I had a letter a short time ago from one of these maltsters in which he said:
The men are engaged in malting when they are not required on the land. This was always the case in normal times—95 per cent. of the men had employment waiting for them directly they finished malting, and more often than not the farmers would approach us asking when the men, who were required for the haysel, hoeing roots, and harvest would be at liberty. The two industries dovetailed in and helped one another. The men were at work all the winter months under shelter, earning good money, and left in good fettle for land work.
If we can restore prosperity to our country malthouses, we should be doing a good deal to get that contentment in village life which we all desire to see.
I was glad to hear references to afforestation. We hear a great deal now about the futility of most of such relief work as doing to-day the work that would normally be done to-morrow, and there are difficulties in finding the kind of work that will give benefit to the country as a whole. Many jobs that could be done in the countryside cannot be done because they give benefit to an individual or a small group of individuals, but in afforestation we are giving jobs to men, the whole benefit of which will result to the nation at large. In East Anglia, in Norfolk and Suffolk, the Forestry Commission are planting something like 40,000 acres, about one half of which is in my own constituency. A tree growing singly is a very beautiful thing, but, when you have trees growing in hundreds of thousands, mile after mile of them, opinions may differ as to whether they are real beauty or not. There are advantages and disadvantages to the country in these schemes of afforestation, but, if we can use that scheme for giving employment to our people, especially in times of adversity, there is a great deal to be said for it.
In the process of economy the Forestry Commission had to cut down to some extent their schemes, but they are naturally keen to carry on as evenly as possible their normal planting of so many acres in order to have a regular continuity of plan. There is scope at the present time for the Government and the Forestry Commission getting together to see if there is not work to be done on the forestry lands which will permanently improve those lands and will at the present
time give employment to men otherwise unemployed. The cost to the country will not be great because one can set off against the cost of employing those men on the land the reduction in the cost of transitional payment or public assistance. I hope my right hon. Friend will do all he can to get that kind of work done, because there again it will be giving work to men in that difficult season of the year when there is not much work on the land. For all these reasons, I desire to support very heartily the Motion now before the House.

9.34 p.m.

Mr. McKIE: I am sure the whole House is under a deep debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Brown) for using his chance in the Debate to secure for us this valuable discussion on rural life in all its aspects. Although the hon. Member and the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Crossley) in his particularly picturesque address dwelt upon the minor rural industries, they will forgive me if I do not follow them in detail, because I wish to address myself particularly to the great central rural industry of agriculture. We are all hoping, we are as near being certain as we can be in this mortal life, that the efforts of the National Government will speedily result in agriculture attaining once more the position that it ought to occupy in the body politic.
There are one or two other matters which at once thrust themselves upon our attention when we think of expanding agriculture, namely, What are we going to do to provide for the housing of the additional workers who, we hope, are going to be called for and what are we going to do to provide them with the other amenities of life? A very great deal remains to be done in the villages of England, and Scotland, too, towards providing a proper system of drainage and giving them the water supplies which other more fortunate citizens possess. I hope very much that the Government will devote much of their energy in this direction. Even at present when, alas, many agricultural workers are being driven out of employment and the absence of any scheme of unemployment insurance for the rural worker prevents us knowing what the real figures of unemployment in the industry are, there is a housing
shortage. What will conditions be like when in a few years' time we will hope there are more workers to be housed? The House has had under consideration within the last few weeks housing Measures with regard to both England and Scotland. I am very glad indeed that the Government saw fit to deal with the housing question in North and South Britain by two separate Measures. In doing so, they showed that they fully realise the different conditions that obtain, both in town and country, in England and Scotland. Much of the controversy that has raged around those Measures has been on the question of subsidies.

Mr. DEPUTY - SPEAKER (Captain Bourne): I must point out to the hon. Member that the Motion is somewhat limited in scope. He now seems to me to be getting far away from it.

Mr. McKIE: My point was simply the question of the provision of houses for the rural worker and the plea that has been made that adequate steps should be forthcoming owing to the withdrawal of the subsidy. In Scotland the rural worker will be in a more happy position, because the continuance of the subsidy will ensure him an adequate supply of houses. I hope the Government will devote their energies to the provision of houses for the rural workers with the same ardour that I hope they will display with regard to providing drainage systems and water supply. With regard to the agricultural industry—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Again, I must point out that the agricultural industry does not arise on this Motion.

Mr. McKIE: I was under the impression that it arose owing to the words "prosperity of agriculture" appearing in the Motion. More than one speaker has alluded to the Marketing Bill which we were discussing only two days ago.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present: House counted, and 40 Members being present—

Mr. McKIE: The attitude of the farming community towards the Government is not that they are dissatisfied that the Government have done too much. With regard to what legislation has already been undertaken towards resuscitating agriculture, pleas are repeatedly made
from the benches below me that nothing has really been done to benefit the farmers, that what has been done would have been much better left undone, and that those engaged in agriculture will find that their last state is worst than their first. I would warn hon. Members that when they make such statements they are in no way meeting the requirements of the farmers. I warn them also that when they embark upon such a crusade they will be sowing the seeds of a terrible harvest whenever the next General Election comes, at all events, in the rural constituencies. It is all very well in this House to try and score debating points, and to say that Ottawa, for instance, did nothing for the farmers. That is merely one side of the picture. It is begging the question and is providing no alternative whatever. The farming community, especially in Scotland, are far too shrewd and long-headed to be beguiled by such specious pleas. It is not that Ottawa or anything else went too far. The farming community still think that matters have not been carried far enough. In view of what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has said on more than one occasion recently, the farmers are beginning to feel more satisfied and comfortable with regard to the future. The Government have nothing to fear from action, but they will have everything to dread from delay.

9.47 p.m.

Mr. RHYS: We must be grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Brown) for introducing this Motion and providing an opportunity for this discussion. There has been a very serious drop in the number of children attending many of the schools in the countryside of England, and it is a very close indication of the decay which is going on, not only in the agricultural industry but in the ancillary industries grouped around it. I wish to draw the attention of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to two or three points in the hope that he may bear them in mind in future. Unemployment, unfortunately, is growing in the villages, not only among the agricultural labourers, but among the community who act as gardeners and grooms. Although it is perhaps not entirely a question for the Department of the Minister, I hope that he will use his influence to secure a reduction of taxa-
tion—particularly of Death Duties—which is draining the countryside of its very lifeblood. It is easy enough to sneer and laugh at that kind of remark, but the fact remains that agriculture is having its lifeblood drained away, and the men who usually find employment in gardens and in stables are finding it more and more difficult to support their wives and families.
Another industry which is suffering very severely along the Surrey-Sussex border and which used to be a very prosperous one, is that which was referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend, namely, the underwood industry. In days gone by many farmers and estates made a considerable profit every year from the sale of their underwood, particularly for the purpose of fencing, and, in some districts, for hop-poles. The best of the wood was usually sold for hop-poles, and to some extent this still goes on. The fencing industry, however, is very nearly dead owing to foreign competition. These may be small points, but I am sure that hon. Members will realise that 10 or 12 men out of work in a small village constitutes a considerable proportion of the population, and to the particular village it means a great deal. There is a large number of small country brickfields dotted about the country, and I hope that the housing policy of the Government will have the desired effect of re-employing men who are now being stood off in those small brickfields.
I urge the Minister to bear in mind the proposals which have so far been put forward, but they do not really touch the problem of the agricultural labourer's cottage. The low wage of the agricultural labourer has in the past been in some measure compensated for by the low rent at which he has been able to occupy his cottage. If my right hon. and gallant Friend can urge his colleague the Minister of Health to take a further step forward with regard to the provision of cottages for agricultural labourers, it will have a very desirable effect upon employment in the villages near the brickfields. These two or three points which I was anxious to raise appear to be very small compared with the importance of the Debate to which we have listened this afternoon, but, after all, the lives of the individuals who live in the countryside are just as important to them as our lives are
to us. We ought not to lose any opportunity of bringing those questions to the fore whenever we have such a splendid opportunity as that which has been provided for us this evening.

9.52 p.m.

Mr. RAIKES: I should like to congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Brown) upon bringing this Motion forward at a singularly appropriate time when we have the Agricultural Marketing Bill being steered through the House of Commons by my right hon. and gallant Friend. If there is one thing which is certain it is that rural industry cannot possibly revive until agriculture itself is placed upon a satisfactory and sound basis. The whole weakness and difficulty of agriculture in the past few years has been that there has been no incentive whatever for agriculture to reorganise, simply because there has been no security for the home market nad for agriculture as a whole. Now, at any rate, we are facing a new situation, which by helping agriculture will help all those rural industries which are dependent upon the main branch. Agriculture will realise when my right hon. and gallant Friend has had his way and in a comparatively short time, that it can obtain some security provided it is reorganised.
The whole of the village communities and rural industries are dependent upon one thing, namely, that of a flourishing organised agriculture. It is not simply a question of the people who are actually at work in agriculture itself. It goes beyond that and embraces many sidelines of the agricultural industry in which men secure employment when agriculture is prospering. These include local veterinary services, blacksmiths, and trappers, who when things are prosperous are able to get employment and be their own masters, but who when, on the other hand, agriculture is fading and dying simply drift away and are lost. All their knowledge is lost, and the small individualism which they represent goes too.
Beyond those local trades there is the advantage to what I think is one of the best sides of village life, namely, the work that exists for the Jack-of-all-trades. I mean the man who is not directly concerned with any particular branch of agriculture, but who may, with the aid of
his wife, keep the village grocery store, He ekes things out a little further by usually doing a certain amount of slaughter for local farmers, perhaps keeps a few poultry, possibly a cow or two, or a pig or two, and at the same time very likely keeps ferrets, which he also loans out at a price either to neighbouring farmers or to poachers, who also need those animals. That is a useful function, and he is a man of some individualism. He is a man who works for himself; he is his own master, and one of the troubles of the whole situation to-day, throughout all this country, is that agriculture is over-industrialised, and there are not enough small men able to work their own job and able to make use of their own gifts.
Beyond him you have one thing which I think we should face. So far as mixed farming advances, it helps rural industries—all those people who lie, so to speak, in the wake of successful agriculture. But we ought to be careful not to turn our minds too much in one direction, which we have been inclined to emphasise of late: that of more cereal fanning. On cereals alone you get the same danger of complete industrialisation and mechanisation that is one of the troubles of the towns. The danger in the cereal side of agriculture is that you may get away from individualism. You may gradually denude your land of men by means of mechanised inventions; you may, in fact, kill those very virtues which are the chief reasons why agriculture is still the basic industry and the greatest industry of the land. I say, quite frankly, that I am afraid of that sort of mechanised, industrialised capitalism, whether it is a capitalism of the individual or simply a capitalism of the State. It is more and more making our own people throughout this country cogs in a great machine, without individualism and without the opportunity to develop their own talents, which, after all, in the long run make or mar a nation. Rural industry, so far as it has been developed on the small lines that I have indicated, can at any rate give men a chance of getting out of the mere common rut.
There are two further points on which I should like to say a word in support of my hon. and gallant Friend. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Rhys) raised a question concerning Death
Duties. If you are going to have Death Duties at all, I submit to my right hon. and gallant Friend that in the long run Death Duties taken from the land ought to be put back on the land and not simply frittered away on things outside. There is some argument for taking money out of capital if it goes back, in a sense, into capital. If Death Duties on the land were transferred back into schemes of forestry, electricity or drainage, they would not simply mean, as they mean to-day, the killing of capital and the still further weakening of a very great industry.
Beyond that there is the question of banking. More harm has been done to agriculture as a whole by irresponsible loans from banks than, perhaps, by anything else. Agriculture for nearly 100 years has been gradually getting into the hands of the rentier class. Farmers have had too much credit, and too much credit is quite as big a danger as too little credit. I should like to see the re-establishment of land banks, so far as it could be done, on the lines of the old county banks, which have some knowledge of the individual's security, the individual position of the individual man. They can give help in a worthy case and can judge a case on its merits, and at the same time they are not working simply to pile mortgage upon mortgage until in the long run they ruin the producer. The future of this country lies with the producer. You must, so far as you can, make the producer rather than the distributor or any class of rentiers the real factor upon which to concentrate and for which to find employment.
My final criticism is that in our rural education we tend far too much to allow townsmen to teach our boys and girls mere useless town stuff. You ought to have more countrymen as teachers in our village schools; you ought to give more practical rural information and teaching to those boys and girls. I suppose it is the Liberal party—who are mainly townsmen—who have played the chief part and done the most work in this movement. If you can be a little less dogmatic, if you can give a little bit more of real practical education to your village and agricultural children, you will be helping the drift back to the countryside. Although I differ from my friends of the Labour party, I believe that the Labour party are going to realise the value of
the return to the land. In fact, it has been asserted that we must, in this country and in foreign countries, have a definite scheme of bringing men back, of stabilising the home markets, rather encouraging people to go in for agriculture and to work out their talents within that vast industry than letting them drift away and join the mechanised millions who are displaced time after time and queue up at the street corner and increase and increase. Until you get back to the land you are, day in and day out, weakening the virility of your country and wasting every opportunity of pulling it round to a strong and lasting state. You have to secure your home markets; you have to encourage the small man, to encourage the subsidiary industries that touch on agriculture. I venture to say that my hon. and gallant Friend's Motion to-night has at any rate ventilated a great and important problem, and I look forward, old-fashioned Tory as I am, to some support and some help from my friends on the Socialist side and on the Liberal side to the Tories in bringing these schemes forward.

10.4 p.m.

Mr. ATKINSON: I only rise to put in a plea to the Government to encourage and support the County Development Associations. They do more than any other body to encourage rural industries. There are several in existence, and my own county of Cheshire has an excellent one. It is the duty of the Government to do their: best to help these associations. It is very important to get every urban authority and every district authority interested in them, and to support them financially. I suppose there is no more essentially rural industry than pig production, and that there is no county more fitted for the production of pigs than Cheshire; yet there is not a bacon factory in that county. We could produce very good cheese, but the marketing arrangements are limited, and there is no advertising at all. The association hopes to do something for those industries. That is merely an illustration of the way in which these associations help; many others could be given by Members in connection with their own counties. I should like to urge the Government, among the steps that this Motion urges
it to take, to assist the formation of these associations, and I should like to urge hon. Members to do their best to encourage the local authorities in their constituencies to join these associations. It is only by organised effort that these industries will be assisted.

10.5 p.m.

Dr. O'DONOVAN: The Motion refers to the need of a contented village life, and in order to secure that asks for the assistance of the Minister of Agriculture and that His Majesty's Government should take every possible step. Therefore, this is a very wide Motion. The hon. Member for South-East Essex (Mr. Raikes) pointed out that we must take every care of the small man. But we must first of all produce the small man. Nothing has been more regrettable than to see in the Press the appreciative paragraphs referring to the fact that many of the villages of England were really museums of the ancient, consisting of small cottages, housing men and women 70, 80 and 90 years of age. If village life and village rural industries are to prosper and progress there must be a fostering care on the part of the Government of the village labourer's wife. There can be nothing more disheartening than for a village labourer's wife to come to London and see the lavish social services at the disposal of her sister in London, and to compare that with the impoverished social services at the disposal of the village labourer's wife.
You can see arising in every city expensive buildings, staffed by an expensive body of experts, for maternity and sickness, but in the country village you have the country doctor who suffers in contrast with the panel doctor in the town. You have the village midwife working under great difficulties, whose return hardly pays for her existence. To ask village life to prosper under these conditions is to ask a lot, and I am sure that His Majesty's Government must give a care to the return to the country of some of the money they take from the country in the form of social services comparable to those received by town dwellers. It may be difficult, but difficult problems should be the prize of good administration. If village life is to prosper there must be a complete culture; it must not be a half life. I agree that
the veterinary surgeon can contribute to village culture, but you must have a complete civilisation; and in addition to the village parson you must have a first-class village teacher and parish doctor, and, I think, a squire. There must be leaders in the social, medical, clerical and teaching world, and then civilisation in the country will be complete, and able to stand against the false blandishments of town life. When men decay in the villages the country cannot prosper. I shall support the terms of the Motion which asks His Majesty's Government to give a care to village rural life.

10.10 p.m.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Major Elliot): I am sure that the House will realise that in the years which have passed since the hon. and gallant Member first brought forward this Motion that the subject has matured and ripened; and that the count which brought that Motion to an untimely end has served on this occasion to ensure a more continuous audience, which has throughout the evening displayed a remarkable ingenuity in the variety of the subjects it has found possible to raise under this head. It is true that the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie) was debarred by the Chair from entering into a discussion of the building industry, and I could see him chafing against the restraints of order which kept him from making the speech which we should have expected from him; but there is quite enough in the Motion, and in the speeches which have been made, to give us plenty of food for thought. It is clear that the House is more and more anxious about the position not merely of agriculture itself, but about the focal points of civilisation, the villages and the industries which the villages support.
It is true, I think, that mechanised agriculture, producing quite as much in the way of tons of meat and butter and cheese as agriculture does at present, may be organised in such a way that it would not be a great contribution to the strength of the nation: indeed the reverse. There is a more ancient kind of life than to hear a whistle blown at six o'clock in the morning, calling everybody to work. There is a more ancient and honourable way of existence which gives a close contact of the man with his job, and with the fruits of his job; knowing
where they are to go and working well because it will be appreciated by the people who are personal friends of his own and whose good will he desires to secure and maintain. That is essentially the link which it is desired to have between village industries and the users of village industries; and that is the object which for years past His Majesty's Government have done their best to secure and extend.
The work of the Rural Industries Bureau has been of the greatest service to village industries during a time when village industries were not as highly thought of in the councils of the nation as they are to-day. I should like to pay my tribute to Mr. Vaughan Nash who both at the development commission and at the Rural Industries Bureau worked whole-heartedly and enthusiastically. Until his lamented death he did more than any single man towards keeping alive the spirit of village industries, to which we are all looking forward to a much greater development. The work of the Rural Industries Bureau and the Rural Community Councils has been referred to, but there was one aspect which, oddly enough, has not been mentioned, and that is the emphasis which the Rural Industries Bureau has laid upon the blacksmith and the smith as craftsmen whom the village finds impossible to dispense with.
The danger of the village losing the smith is a real danger indeed. Horse traction, in spite of everything, is still a live factor in our countryside, and I think it is possible that horse traction will in this country, as in many other countries, be able even on an economic basis to compete and perhaps surpass mechanised traction. But not without the blacksmith, not without the smith. I was reading a book written by a nephew of the President of the Board of Trade, who, after a career as a young man in the Flying Corps and other services, settled down as a village blacksmith, but who in addition to being a good blacksmith was able to write a very useful and entertaining book about it. I think it is an example of what we hope to find increasingly in the future, that people will devote themselves to labour not merely for the purpose of making money out of it, but because they realise that a mode of life is as valuable a thing as a pocket-
ful of money, and that it is possible that our factories have overdone the necessity for toil from morning to night for the purpose of filling a big pay envelope at the end of the week. We have certainly got a mode of life which is a much less attractive one than that of the village worker who is in an industry small enough for him really to feel a sense of possession in the work and in the products of his labour.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire (Commander Cochrane) brought out a note in a very short but extremely interesting speech— the remarkable figure that there were in this country at the last Census of Production no fewer than 90,000 factories employing fewer than 35 men each. As he truly said, there was no particular reason why those factories, or a great many of them, should not be in smaller centres of population rather than in larger. It may be that the dovetailing of winter work with summer work, of work on the land with work in the shop or factory of some kind, to which other speakers have referred, notably, the hon. and gallant Member for South-West Norfolk (Sir A. McLean), can be found not merely in the older industries but in the new industries which are growing up.
Henry Ford has put it forward as his ideal that all men should be in the country, and that they should work on the manufacture of parts, which should subsequently be assembled in a larger central depot, and that a considerable proportion of every factory worker's time should be devoted to work on the land. That American dovetailing does not always work out so satisfactorily when brought to the test of actual experience, but it is at any rate interesting to note that one of the oldest of rural industries, the malting industry, draws its strength from precisely that dovetailing which in a more modern form has appealed to the most modern of men, the American millionaire, Henry Ford.
It is possible that we, in looking at the decay of certain rural industries, neglect the rise of certain other rural industries. To-day there are some rural developments which are favourable to life in the countryside and in the village, as against developments which 25 years ago were unfavourable. I do not quote the motor omnibus as an unfavourable
factor in village life; I should quote it as a favourable factor. It removes the sense of isolation, by making the rural dweller feel that he, or rather she, can get into the town and return again to the country. That makes it more easy for people to remain in the village. It is not that one can get out of a place that upsets one, but the feeling that one cannot. If one feels that one can leave a place, or a man's company, at any moment, one is more content to stay in a place.
The wireless has also done a great deal to make people contented with village life. They can listen-in to the words of the great ones of the land and come to the conclusion that those words are not any more intelligent than what they could hear at the blacksmith's or the cobbler's shop while, in the case of the wireless, they have not the great fun of butting in and putting their own side of the case. I am not at all sure that even the cinema has not its good side as well as its bad side in this respect. The dweller in the countryside can see exactly the same show as the town dweller. I do not think that those shows are always of the sort that any of us particularly admire or value but at any rate the man or woman in the country has exactly the same chance of seeing "Shanghai Express." for instance, as the town dweller. I do not say that "Shanghai Express" is the sort of thing on which we should wish either the town or country dweller to concentrate too much. At all events, if they want a fairy story, there is a fairy story —one which has, apparently, no relation to real life whatever. The dweller in the country can see it and say, "If that is the sort of thing that they get in London and the big towns we might just as well go out and look at the sunset which is much better entertainment and has the advantage of being free."
Here, then, are features which are favourable to rural life, but all these are useless unless we have the foundation of an economically sound rural life. I shall not dilate upon that point because we have other Measures and other opportunities for bringing that about, but I heartily sympathise with the expression of opinion which has come from speaker after speaker, that, without a sound economic life, it is no use trying to make
a synthetic "arty and crafty" sort of rural existence, backed up by subsidies. I appreciate the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Mile End (Dr. O'Donovan), who pointed out the necessity that the services which are available for the town dweller should, to some extent, be available for the country dweller also. That point was stressed by other speakers—it was one of the points got in by the hon. Member for Galloway before he was called to order—particularly with reference to-water supply. The kind of village life that we all desire must not be based upon the slavery of the housewife. Efforts must be made to see that the rural housewife has access to sources of clean water, and that when she is bearing children she has the same services as those afforded to her sisters in the towns and living nearer to the great centres of medical research and education.
This Debate has been marked by many interesting speeches and by a particularly interesting speech from the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. J. P. L. Thomas). He brought forward several points which will certainly receive the attention both of myself and the Department. His suggestion that it may be desirable to look again, not merely into the organisation of existing industries but the possible foundation of new industries, is worthy of attention at the present time. In the attempt to rebuild rural life in a near-by country, in Ireland, when Lord Balfour took up his work as Chief Secretary, one of his chief efforts was to investigate through the Congested Districts Board the possibility of new industries, and to cooperate with the inhabitants and with people willing to take some leadership in the question, to see whether new industries could be set up in the congested districts of rural Ireland. That work met with a great deal of success by not trying to impose some cast-iron structure upon the whole industry, but by realising that only by individual effort, by picking out here and there where a seed was likely to grow was it possible for an efficient rural industry to be started. The carpet industry and other industries in Ireland owe their inception to the stimulus given through the Congested Districts Board
when we were attempting to solve the problem of the rural life in another country. Let us hope it will be possible to take some lessons which we learned when working on the rural life of another country and apply them when we are trying, as we are here, to develop our own. Another point which was made by several speakers, and in particular by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) was that the school was a key point in rural life and that the bias given one way or the other in the school might be a factor of overwhelming importance in the subsequent attitude of mind of the scholars towards the whole question of existence in the country or in the town. One or two speakers have pleaded for a greater education in practical agriculture, notably my hon. Friend the Member for South East Essex (Mr. Raikes). I am not quite certain—I am not here speaking as Minister of Education, although we have the great advantage of a Minister of Education who has been himself a Minister of Agriculture and has sympathies with the countryside as large as any man in Parliament to-day—whether the ideal of education in agriculture or of education in rural life is the better, because education in agriculture may have the effect of most of our education, that is to say, filling one with an enduring disgust of the subject in which one is educated, and I should be most unwilling to see the land and agriculture obtain the same wholehearted dislike in later years by the scholar that the great dramatist Shakespeare does when one has been driven through his plays as a school subject for the purpose of passing examinations.
It is again noteworthy that the Danes, when they started on their efforts to recreate rural life, went for a cultural, not an agricultural, education. I am not dogmatising on this, but merely contributing my part to a Debate which has been singularly fruitful in the pooling of ideas, and I merely ask my hon. and hon. and gallant Friends who have spoken to consider whether in fact the best of all solutions would not be the highly educated man who comes to agriculture or to rural life with the desire to make a success of it, believing that, after trying other things and having all the resources of civilisation open to him, rural life is the best thing he can possibly
take up and the soundest way of life for a really rational man to engage upon. These things, of course, take one a little far from what one might call the sealed pattern of a rural industries Debate. I am sure that at the present time we have to go a little wider than these close examinations if we are to get down to the real recreation or revival of rural life which we all desire.
I think the success, which has been also referred to in this Debate, of the Women's Institutes has done as much as any single factor towards the recreation of rural life. They did not stop simply with agricultural education. It is true that in many cases they have developed into rural handicrafts in a most admirable and praiseworthy fashion. I had an opportunity of visiting an exhibition of handicrafts which the Women's Institutes recently had. It included needlework, basket-making, leather work and the making of things which one does not immediately associate with women's activities, such as carpentry and even iron-work. All these things were put forward in a most interesting exhibition. That started from working at community life and desiring to obtain the feeling that people were not merely isolated units in a village community, but a group of people who were working together and living in the country, and intended to go on living in the country because that was where their lot was cast and they had no desire to depart from it. I think that the rural community councils which have been spoken of to-night are striving to do and will more and more take on important work. They are off-shoots of the National Council of Social Service, which has recently been asked by the Government to undertake important duties, and which, I think, is performing them to the satisfaction of all.
In accepting this Motion we do desire not merely, as the Mover and Seconder said, to insert it in a pigeon-hole and see that it is not again taken out except for the purpose of dusting it some years hence. The encouragement of rural industries and the maintenance of a pride in village life are fundamental to the policy of the Government. We are making a start with the great industry of agriculture. These other industries are ancillary to the industry of agriculture.
It may be that agriculture itself cannot reach its full stature except with the assistance of these odd outlying industries of which both my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire have spoken to-night. Let us always remember that rural industries are a part of the life of Great Britain as a whole. Do not let us segregate town and country. As so many speakers have said to-night, we have too much developed the life in the towns but the people there are all Scots, English, Irish or Welshmen, and they are not very far away from the country; they are not many generations removed from it. If you can make life in the country heathy, tolerable and cultured, we shall find our people returning there. The queues at the Employment Exchanges are the strongest propaganda for the rural life. The people of this country are not fools, and are looking at the queues and saying, "If this is the end of factory life, perhaps our forefathers who stayed in the villages were wiser men than their sons who went into the towns."

10.35 p.m.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: If only for the purpose of pleasing the hon. and gallant Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Clifton Brown) I rise just to say that we offer no opposition to the Motion which he so ably submitted to the House. We are rather sorry to have to intervene for one moment in what has been a very pleasant afternoon since 7.30. In 10 years I have never seen a more happy family party in the House of Commons than we have had during the last four hours. A mutual admiration society would perhaps better describe the position. How the Minister felt when congratulations were coming in upon him from North, South, East and West I really do not know. I think the right hon. Gentleman was correct if he felt apprehensive. In any case the Motion has provided an opportunity for a very varied discussion on rural life, which has been pleasing, helpful and constructive. Sometimes I felt that we had more representatives of Gandhi in this House than we had hitherto thought. Many hon. Members want to go back to the state of Gandhi, to the hand loom and the many towels round the body, and so
forth. I think the hon. and gallant Member for Dumbartonshire (Commander Cochrane) was quite correct when he said of somebody that he was thinking of tomorrow while looking at yesterday. That was a fairly accurate description. Nevertheless, many of these rural industries which have died out are a distinct loss to this nation, and could circumstances be created under which they could be restored, even though they employed only two or three men in a village, it would be of distinct advantage not only to village life but to the health and the social life of the nation as a whole.
One thing dawns upon us in listening to the long lament over the depopulation of the countryside—that the lopsided development from which this nation is now suffering has at long last brought many rural Members, and even the hon. and gallant Member who introduced this Motion, to a stage in their development where they have at least begun to realise that the depopulation of the countryside is not of value to the State. It is rather a pity that the hon. and gallant Member should not have thought of this 30 or 40 years ago, for he must have known then, as we all know now, that it was because profits in industrial life were so easy that the countryside, village life and all those glorious things to which he referred were sadly and seriously neglected. We are suffering the consequences to-day. Social life and social value were ignored for the material life which was so easily obtainable in a world of expanding markets. Now, as the hon. Member below the Gangway who had the misfortune to take an uncomfortable seat said, we have lost a great deal of our social life and our social values, through having paid too little attention to the production of food and the development of village industries. We paid more attention to the towns and the profits which were so easily obtainable therefrom on an expanding market than we paid to the development of a strong, healthy, vigorous race in the country.
I would say to hon. Gentlemen who want to restore large numbers of people to country life that they must take the hint of the hon. Member for Mile End (Dr. O'Donovan), who suggested that we cannot expect people to leave the social life of the town for the countryside until the services in the country are almost
equivalent to the services in the town. We cannot expect people to migrate from the towns, where they have electricity, water, sanitation and all the other social services, unless the countryside is similarly served. That becomes a question of money and of interest. Hon. Gentlemen who want the restoration of a happy, vigorous country life may think out how we can give our village population a good water supply and a good supply of electric light or gas, and if we do that the chances are that we shall be able to persuade many of those 97,000 factories employing 25 persons or less, to go out into the villages, where the populations would be sufficiently large to make a village institute or a women's institute a live entity and of real value in the social life of the country.
I was rather interested to hear the suggestion of the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire when he appealed to the Minister to hand on some sort of recommendation to the Import Duties Advisory Committee for the increase of the duty upon baskets. I was equally interested to hear the hon. Member for Hereford who replied to the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire. It happens that those two hon. Members represent two different phases of agriculture, and that a heavy duty upon imported baskets, or upon the raw material, would obviously suit the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, while it would not suit the hon. Member for Hereford. What is one man's meat is the other fellow's poison. I suggest to the hon. Gentlemen that they argue the matter outside the Chamber, and that they give the Minister the benefit of their conclusions after a very healthy debate. If they rely, as the hon. Member for Hereford suggested, wholly and solely upon Protection, I am sure that they will not get even the support of the Minister. Protection is not a policy; it is a means of escape from producing a policy.
To re-establish a happy, vigorous, contented village life we have to do something much more than merely provide protection for agriculture. The hon. Gentleman who introduced this Motion suggested that the landowners' associations of this country, who were now doing great things in the production of timber and were organising themselves efficiently for the purpose of selling that timber, wanted protection and assistance from
the Import Duties Advisory Committee. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee will remember that there are many other industries in this country that are not very prosperous, and that to impose a duty upon timber—such as, for instance, upon pit-props—would hit very heavily such already sorely depressed industries as the mining industry.
We welcome the Motion. We think that the intention and the purpose of it, apart from the protective suggestions that have been made, have been of real value. We are glad to note the development in the education of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. We are pleased to note that in 1933 they recognise that the lop-sidedness of things has become a positive danger to the State. If this Debate finds its way into the minds of those responsible at the Ministry of Agriculture and in other Government Departments, and they will set themselves the duty of trying to re-arrange our economic life, giving the countryside a much better chance than it has had in the past without imposing a heavy burden upon the rest of the community, I, and I believe my party, will think that this Debate has been useful.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. GLOSSOP: I intervene for a few moments because I think that the subject of this Motion is bound up entirely with the Government's policy as regards the restoration of prosperity to agriculture. For years this House and the people of this country, if not directly, have indirectly sneered at those who have to make their living out of the land. There has been among the masses of the people of this country during the last century an atmosphere that the people who live on the land are inferior, that they are not of such great intelligence as those who live in the towns. In view of the Government's policy with regard to agriculture at the present time, it is essential to let the country people know that at least we realise that those who live in these rural areas of our great country are the backbone, and will largely be the salvation, of the country in the future.
I was delighted to hear the Minister remark on the value of the wireless. It has done and is doing a great deal towards developing the rural mind and making the rural people conscious of
their own position and importance in the make-up of the country. There has been in the past a feeling among country people that, because they speak with a certain type of dialect, they were uneducated, but I think that the British Broadcasting Corporation, in broadcasting, as they have from time to time, plays in the dialect of different parts of the country, have made those people realise that there is something real and vital behind their dialect and customs in their own local villages.
The Minister referred to the village smith and the saddler. I think that my right hon. Friend has only come to the rescue just in time, because we have seen during the last 10 years almost the extinction of the real village smith and the real country saddler. Those of us who have farms of our own know the difficulty that there is now in getting good saddlery work done, because so many of the saddlers have gone out of business. That has not been because the saddler or the blacksmith did not make excellent articles, but because, owing to the depression which has pervaded the agricultural industry, farmers and others have been compelled to buy agricultural implements and saddlery made in the factory, which are not nearly as good as those made by the local smith or the local saddler. Only on Monday, on my own farm, I had an illustration of the superior work of the village smith as compared with the work of a large manufacturing foundry. I was following a pair of harrows which had not had their teeth reset since 1926, and yet to-day those teeth are almost as sharp as they were some seven years ago. That particular set of harrows was made by the village blacksmith, at a larger cost, I admit, than that at which I could have bought them from a foundry, but the harrows made in the local smithy were of a much more durable quality than those which could be bought elsewhere. While the Minister has recognised the importance of the village smith and the village saddler, his bold lead with regard to the development of agriculture has only just come in time, if in time, to save those two important factors in rural life.
I want to refer to another rural industry which I think is a very important one, namely, the bee-keeping industry.
Hon. Members may know that bees are good for rheumatism. Bees kept on a farm or market garden are of the utmost importance, not only for bringing in a small revenue from the sale of honey, but for the fertilisation of flowers and fruit. The bee industry, capable as it is of very large development, has been very much neglected in the past. There has been little or no encouragement to the man who desires to keep his apiary free from disease. He often finds that although he fumigates his hives and keeps his stock in a really healthy condition, he finds perhaps that his neighbour half-a-mile away who is losing bees as a result of Isle of Wight disease, has never taken even the trouble to fumigate his hives or close the shutters in front of the hives. Small in the aggregate as is the importance of the bee industry, it is one which is capable of considerable expansion. One factor which is playing an important part in developing the minds of the rural workers and people who live in the villages is the libraries introduced by the county councils, and which enable the people of the villages to read really good books and novels. I cannot think of any better way of making the rural people appreciate their position and their importance in the country and realise what an enormous tradition there is behind the agricultural people of this country than that they should perhaps take from the shelves of these libraries a book called "Roots," dealing with a Yorkshire agricultural family, a book which, even in these difficult times, should stimulate every person engaged on the soil.
In conclusion, I want to deal with one point touched upon by the hon. and gallant Member for Newbury (Brigadier-General Clifton Brown) and susequent speakers, the question of education in our rural schools. I do think we might do something to try to interest the children at our rural schools in some of the farm machinery which we hope they will be able to utilise and work alongside when they leave school. I am not one who is opposed to the money which this country is spending on education. I am concerned that we should spend it to the best possible advantage of the individual and the country as a whole. I cannot help thinking, however, that Morris dances and painting are of little use to the potential farm labourer and that it would im-
prove his mind Very much better if he was taught the parts of a plough and of various other agricultural implements I do think the county councils and education committees should encourage those school masters and school mistresses who desire to instruct their pupils in regard to practical agriculture during the years when they are at school. At the present time there is an enormous difficulty for the enterprising schoolmaster to get permission from the education authority to take his pupils, perhaps, over some neighbouring farm with a good deal of up-to-date machinery. I do hope the Minister will communicate with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Education to see if it is not possible for some encouragement to be given to schools to provide facilities to schools to go round farms in their neighbourhood.
I cannot help thinking that we are bound from an economic point of view to increase settlement on the land in this country. I believe that in the next year or two, when the policy of the Minister with regard to agriculture has had time to fructify, it will be possible for many more people to be occupied on the land. I believe that the increased settlement that we hope to see will be largely the small man, the smallholder, and I believe these persons must be adaptable to their jobs. However hard they work, however profitable the Minister can succeed in making their industry, it will be impossible for them to employ highly skilled workmen in the same way that the large farmer does. The smallholder, to make a success, must be able to do carpentry and repairs to farm machinery himself. If he has to start by getting outside labour, often at trade union rates, it will be impossible for him to carry on. For that reason, I stress that, when the Government are making everything possible for a large resettlement of people on the land, we should at the same time educate the rising generation in such a way that they will be able to make the fullest use of the opportunities that will be provided for them. I welcome the statement of the Minister and the importance that he attaches to the Motion.

Resolved,
 That this House is of opinion that the encouragement of rural industries and the maintenance of a thriving and contented
village life, together with a prosperous agriculture, are vital to this country, and urges His Majesty's Government to take every possible step in this direction.

COMPANIES ACT, 1929.

Sir ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: I beg to move,
 That this House, having been made aware of the losses sustained in recent years by private persons who have invested their savings in concerns organised under limited liability, requests the Government to set up a departmental committee to examine the provisions of the Companies Act, 1929, with a view to amending that Act so that in future the public may be protected against unscrupulous persons.
As the House is aware, the whole country has been shocked, at the wholesale collapse of companies a year or two ago. I move this Motion in order that the President of the Board of Trade may think fit, not to try to find reasons why he should not act but to find reasons why he should act. I do not know why there should be any opposition to the proposal that we should have a Departmental Committee to look into the matter. I have here a copy of the recognised organ of the chartered accountants which says:
 The accounting profession is strongly in favour of reforming company law on the ground that existing legislation has proved itself to be inadequate.
If we look forward to recovery in trade, it is necessary, as so many undertakings will be working under limited liability, that there shall be no more opportunity for unscrupulous persons to defraud the public as in the past. If the Board of Trade does not take some action, the public will hold it gravely to blame. I have heard dozens of questions put pointing out the very defects which we ask to have amended.

Mr. ALBERY: I beg to second the Motion.

It being Eleven of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

The Orders of the Day were read, and postponed.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Sir F. Thomson.]

Adjourned accordingly at One Minute after Eleven o' Clock.